If you're a male, or have a man in ...

If you're a male, or have a man in your life, you know that when age play the sycophants up over 40, as mine did this year, it is important to begin to think about the health of your prostate. throughout 50 percent of men throughout 50 years of age may experience prostate problems

A usual problem often treatable with herbal preparations is benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) characterized on a benign (non-cancerous) hyperplasia (enlargement) of the prostate. While this is not life-threatening, it can affect the quality of one's life, in particular, the number of times in which a man may be impressed the urge to urinate during the night - as many as three or four times, or more. The prostate enlargement resulting from BPH narrows the urethra. thus producing poor urinary be molten This can also lead to a legion of other urinary symptoms, including hesitancy or straining to urinate, painful urination, dripping after urination, increased urinary common occurrence and a feeling that the bladder is not quite empty

BPH is a rather poorly understood condition in boundarys of what is at work in the carcass to produce it. It is estimated what this condition costlinesss American men over $1 billion by year.

Herbal remedies versus

conventional unsalable articles for BPH

A number of conventional remedys are used in the treatment of BPH greatest in quantity notably finasteride. Several clinical studies have shown that, from one side of to the other a placebo, it produces moderate improvement. In Europe up to 90 percent of BPH patients are treated with phytopharmaceuticals, or plant-derived medicinal harvests some of which are herbs.

A review of German urologists also indicated that as many as 50 percent of these physicians proffer natural plant-based treatments to those including chemical drugs

The four primary plant materials used in Germany and other European countries (and progressively in the United States) for the treatment of BPH include: Pygeum extracts, stinging fret root extracts, pumpkin seed oil, and extracts of saw palmetto fruits. Our primary focus will be forward saw palmetto, but let's take a brief await at the others, too.

Four phytomedicinals that show

promise in the treatment of BPH

Pygeum take rises from an African tree (Prunus africana), sometimes referr to at its now-obsolete botanical name, Pygeum africana. bottom extracts of the stinging chafe plant (Urtica dioica) are of increasing interest in the treatment of BPH as is pumpkin se oil. Extracts of the fruits (berries) of saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) are the best known herbal treatments for BPH In one European literature, the plant is referr to from its century-old obsolete name, Sabal serrulata. In a number of German scientific papers, the herbal work is referred to as "sabal" fruits, moreover the botanical name S. repen is correct for this small member of the palm family. It is important to know these name variances, because you can do a computer search in succession saw palmetto and miss important articles if "sabal" is not used in search inquiries.

Pygeum a tree from tropical Africa, is primarily used in the form of chloroform extracts of the bark. A 1977 double-blind, placebo-controlled close attention of 20 patients with BPH conclud that there were no significant differences between the arises of the placebo group and the treatment clump according to subjective scores based in succession patient/physician perception, as well as objective measures of urinary roll on rate. A recent review remind ofed that, given the small number of patients in the cogitation no valid conclusions could be drawn from it. Another large, double-blind, multicenter placebo-controlled subject of attention conducted in Germany, France, and Austria in 1990 adviseed some improvement in nocturia (the number of times a patient had the impel to urinate at night) and an increase in average urinary emanate rates. Pygeum is often used in combination with stinging fret root or pumpkin seed oil. The jury is still public from a strict scientific standpoint, as to the ultimate value of Pygeum extract; nevertheless, it is still widely prescribed in Germany.

There is undivided additional caveat with this African herb. A 1993 UN-ESCO subject of attention entitled "Sustainability of Harvesting Prunus africana Bark in Cameroon" reported that the bark is harvested from the wild in Cameroon, Zaire, Kenya, and Madagascar. There was relate to at the time that over-harvesting of the bark could be destructive to Afromontane forest "islands" encompassed by savanna. The trees yield a fruit needed as victuals by native birds and mammals. Actions for producing a cultivated replenish were discussed in the paper.

Saw palmetto: the greatest in number common,

best-studied herb for BPH

The best-studied phytomedicine for the treatment of BPH is the extract of saw palmetto fruits. This past year, in doing various call-in radio talk displays inevitably a listener would call in with questions about saw palmetto. greatest in number of the calls included questions related to to what degree best to use it in confines of product forms, dosage, and duration of use. The callers were, for the most numerous part, already using saw palmetto produces According to HerbalGram #36, Spring 1996 saw palmetto is generally number six on the list of the 10 best-selling herbs in health and natural aliment markets.