Saw Palmetto is a widely available supplement for the health and maintenance of the prostate gland. This herb along with many other “prostate friendly” supplements, which I shall discuss in future hubs, is taken to prevent an enlarged prostate. It is also commonly used to control the enlargement process by men who already have BPH( benign prostatic hyperplasia).

Remember that this is a non-cancerous swelling of the prostate gland which can be prevented or at worst controlled by the correct supplementation and a few life-style changes.

From the onset…Prevention Has To Be Better Than Cure

Okay, so what is Saw Palmetto?

Saw Palmetto is a shrub like palm found in the south eastern regions of the USA and around certain parts of the Mediterranean. It is actually the berry from the shrub which is used and is about the size of an olive and is harvested when ripe. I have it on good authority that the seeds have an unpleasant soapy taste prior to processing, but I can’t speak from personal experience on that.

It is also one of the few supplements that have been thoroughly tested and proved to effective in the treatment of BPH. The most famous of these trials took place in Germany over a three year period where patients were given 160mg of saw palmetto extract twice every day. In this double blind trial, saw palmetto was found to treat BPH just as well as Proscar and without side effects such as loss of libido.

So how does it work? Briefly, the over-production of dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is the main reason for prostate enlargement as men get older; and the free fatty acids and sterols found in the saw palmetto extract reduce the amount of DHT created by the body.

 As mentioned earlier saw palmetto has been proved to be effective in combating BPH    (benign prostatic hyperplasia) and is considerably cheaper than prescribed drugs. I won’t offer you any links to suppliers of the herb because you can buy saw palmetto from almost anywhere.

But I will offer you a link to a non-medical prostate massage device which I highly recommend because I think massage is probably the most beneficial therapy to the prostate gland- just as a soothing massage is much appreciated by a tired and struggling body. External Prostate Massage