Talk:Saw palmetto extract

message: There's info on the baldness treatment article that this is used for baldness...? 132.205.44.5 (talk) 01:11, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently beta-sitosterol (found in several natural remedies for benign prostate hypertrophy) blocks the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone.  This ought to make it effective against male-pattern baldness, too.  See beta-sitosterol. Unfree (talk) 06:04, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: baldness treatment?

message: I wonder whether the word "eclectic" is used in this article in its ordinary sense, rather than as the name of a particular group of physicians, which appears to be implied by the capitalization of its initial letter and by the presence of a link to a non-existing article, "Eclectic." Unfree (talk) 06:04, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Eclectic

message: The article states:
"The latest Cochrane Database review. (2009) concludes that "The evidence suggests that Serenoa repens provides mild to moderate improvement in urinary symptoms and flow measures. Serenoa repens produced similar improvement in urinary symptoms and flow compared to finasteride and is associated with fewer adverse treatment events. "[20]
This is not true, this is the conclusion of the review in 2002, as correctly refered to in reference [20]
However, the update of this study in 2009 states:
"Serenoa repens was not more effective than placebo for treatment of urinary symptoms consistent with BPH."
as can be found here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19370565.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.226.211.5 (talk) 14:26, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Ref #1 is now the most recent Cochrane review (2012). Conclusion still negative: "Serenoa repens... did not improve urinary flow measures or prostate size in men with lower urinary tract symptoms consistent with BPH." David notMD (talk) 10:05, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cochrane review 

message: Serenoa, in contrast to this article, seemed equivocal (at first
reading) on the matter of efficacity against BPH; a check of the
references was necessary to realize that the positive results were
all from earlier years.  But there has been intense and growing
political pressure to find treatments ineffective, as a means of
reducing governments' entitlement liabilities, and it seems plausible
that this could influence the design of government-funded medical
research.  Studies are less likely to find differences from placebo
if they use lower dosages and/or shorter durations of treatment.
Retrieving the full text of medical research articles is often
difficult; for example, for me now it would be impossible for
most articles, because I'm using a system that supports neither
graphics nor Javascript, so I can't navigate web sites that
require Javascript to download PDFs, and I couldn't read the PDFs
anyway.  So when summarizing medical research findings like this,
it might be helpful to mention the dosages that were tested.
This seems like a particularly good idea when reporting
what appears to have been a complete reversal over the
past decade (from "safe and effective" to "no different
from placebo") in the evaluation of efficacity, occurring
simultaneously with a financial crisis and a strong push from
government to popularize the strategy of leaving BPH untreated.
67.171.37.107 (talk) 23:10, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  At what dosages? 

message: Works for me.  If I quit taking it for a few days I have to get up four or five times a night.  I have to wonder what they measure when they say it doesn't do anything.
;Bear (talk) 18:20, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: What you describe is entirely consistent with a placebo effect.  Deli nk (talk) 18:24, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Placebo? Not! 

message: The article identifies saw palmetto extract as potentially increasing surgical bleeding risk. I have rewritten this. Leading with the existing ref of a case study with reported this problem. Removing the Medscape ref, which was cited as evidence for bleeding risk, as that link is broken. Current NIH content on saw palmetto makes no mention of bleeding risk. Adding primary research: Tuncel (2009) treated subjects with saw palmetto for five weeks (only 160 mg/day) before prostate surgery. This study was conducted because of claims that pre-treatment reduced operative bleeding. Tuncel reported no benefit compared to control. The trial reported in JAMA in 2011 (Barry et al) included doses as high as 960 mg/day and did not report bleeding problems, but that trial had excluded people on anti-coagulation meds. There are no available secondary sources to cite. David notMD (talk) 10:48, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Surgery and bleeding risk