Saw Palmetto (SERENOA REPENS)

Serenoa repens, known as the Dwarf palm, which has recently become quite popular, is the only species currently classified in the genus Serenoa. It is a small palm that grows to a maximum height of around 2.1-3.0 M. It is native to Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina and Louisiana. It is a hard-stemmed, very slow-growing and long-lived plant. In Florida, USA, there are species that are 500-700 years old. Leaves are 1-2 cm long and leaflets are 50-100 cm long. The fruit is a large reddish-black hard fruit, an important food source for wildlife and historically for humans.
Purified Dwarf palm extract contains 85-90% fatty acids and sterols, as well as abundant tannins, lipases, carotenoids and sugars. Fatty acids include laurate, myristate, palmitate, stearate, oleate and linoleate; phytosterols include campesterol, stigmasterol and β-sitosterol. Liquid saw palmetto supplements contain significant concentrations of individual and total fatty acids and phytosterols.
Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is a condition that affects an average of one-third of men over the age of fifty, causing symptoms after urine storage, emptying and voiding, as well as impairing the quality of life of the patients. Two thirds of these patients receive various medical treatments for their symptoms. Alpha adrenergic blockers, 5 alpha reductase inhibitors and phytotherapeutic agents are frequently used for this purpose.
More than thirty herbal molecules or substances are used in the treatment of UUTS due to BPH. Serenoa repens (Saw Palmetto, Sabal Serrulata) is the most popular plant extract used in the treatment of BPH. S. repens has been suggested to have multiple mechanisms of action demonstrated in in vitro and in vivo studies. These can be summarized as anti-inflammatory, anti-androgenic, proapoptotic and smooth muscle relaxant effects. It exerts its anti-inflammatory effect by inhibiting cyclooxygenase and 5-lipoxygenase biosynthesis, and its antiandrogenic effect by inhibiting the 5 alpha reductase enzyme that converts testosterone to dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Studies on its proapoptotic effect have shown that it produces this effect by increasing the bax/bcl-2 expression ratio and caspase-3 activity in prostate tissue, but this effect has not been demonstrated in other studies. Another effect that enables its use in the treatment of BPH is smooth muscle relaxation via α-1 adrenergic receptors. With this mechanism, they show similar effects with α adrenergic blockers in the treatment of BPH. In summary, the dwarf palm plant is a highly effective drug used in the treatment of prostate.