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All this time I've been taking one Saw Palmetto pill a day and thinking that's adequate...then I noticed others talking about taking 320mg per day and realised one of my pills only contains 160mg. Should I be taking 2 a day? Should I take them at the same time or one in the morning and one in the evening?
The ones I have are Webber Naturals Softgels.
See what the dosage on the bottle is. I take 2 x 160 which = 320. I take them both together.
My bottle says to take 1-2 pills twice a day, so I guess maybe I should take one in the morning, one in the evening? I think I thought I had a higher dose and was taking 1 because atomic's advice had been to take one 320mg pill a day.
I take 320mg of standardised Saw Palmetto a day. I don't know what difference, if any, the standardised part makes!!
Mine says 'standardised' too - that's why I assumed the dosage was right with one pill!
I would up it to 2 then - if you want to!
I take 450mg of SP a day in one pill. (Holland and Barratt) It doesn't say standardised though??? Any idea of the difference?
Active Saw Palmetto Ingredients
The standardized saw palmetto extract is prepared from ripe berries of saw palmetto, an American dwarf palm tree, by a multistep hexane extraction procedure and is highly concentrated. The standard 320 mg daily dose of saw palmetto is equivalent to 20 g of berries.
The extraction procedure serves to preserve the active ingredients and meanwhile to get rid of other useless and even harmful ingredients. The standardized saw palmetto extract contains two fractions of active components, fatty acids and sterols, which constitute about 85% and 0.2% of the extract respectively. The relative contribution of each individual active ingredient to the action of the standardized saw palmetto extract as a whole is not yet clear.
As fatty acids and sterols are extracted in oily preparations and typically remain liquid, the saw palmetto extract is most commonly packed in softgels. The fatty acids and sterols of the saw palmetto extract in softgels more likely remain in natural and active forms and are the choice of most clinical trials.
It should be noted that saw palmetto extract is often not sold in the standardized form. In such cases, the extract is not standardized to 85% fatty acids/sterols and is not at the typical size of 80 or 160 mg. Such non-standardized saw palmetto extracts should be avoided because they are not tested in trials.
I take 320mg of standardized SP a day. I take 320mg at one time. Because I use it for PCOS, I'm not sure that splitting the dose to 1 softgel twice daily would really benefit me. It is just easier for me to take them both at the same time.
Standardized has a different mechanism of action and different/better therapeutic benefits than other forms of SP extract. Standardized with 85-95% of fatty acids seems to be most beneficial for men taking it for prostate health and for women taking it for PCOS because I image it affects the hormones most directly? I wish I was a pharmacist so I could tell you more. :D
Thanks fresas and queen-of-harts!