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Background
- Saw palmetto is a shrublike palm native to the southeastern United States.
- It’s promoted as a dietary supplement for urinary symptoms associated with an enlarged prostate gland (benign prostatic hyperplasia or BPH).
How Much Do We Know?
- Many studies have evaluated various preparations of saw palmetto for urinary tract symptoms associated with prostate enlargement.
What Have We Learned?
- Two large, high-quality studies funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), each using a different preparation of saw palmetto, found these products were no more effective than placebos for BPH symptoms.
- Some studies of saw palmetto products other than those used in the NIH-supported studies suggested these products might be helpful for BPH symptoms, but many of these studies were of low quality.
- No saw palmetto product has been conclusively shown to be effective for BPH.
What Do We Know About Safety?
- Saw palmetto is well tolerated by most users.
- Saw palmetto has not been shown to interact with medications or to affect prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels.
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