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Saw Palmetto Oil and Pumpkin Seed Oil, Side by Side

Saw palmetto and pumpkin seed oil are both in Folli-Activ. Shoppers often meet them as a pair because both have been given to men with benign prostatic hyperplasia and both have a separate hair paper. The pair is not a single blended trial of Folli-Activ. Hong, Kim, and Maeng tested the oils in a prostate-symptom study. Rossi tested saw palmetto against finasteride with photographs. Cho tested a commercial capsule labelled as pumpkin seed oil, Octa Sabal Plus, with hair counts. Read as three studies, the record is specific. Read as one product claim, it is not.

Twelve months, four groups, urinary scores

Hong and colleagues randomized 47 men with benign prostatic hyperplasia, mean age 53.3 years, and an International Prostate Symptom Score over 8. For 12 months the men took sweet-potato-starch placebo at 320 milligrams a day (group A), pumpkin seed oil at 320 milligrams a day (group B), saw palmetto oil at 320 milligrams a day (group C), or both oils at 320 milligrams each (group D).

Symptom scores fell inside groups B, C, and D by three months (P less than 0.05 versus each group's own baseline). Over 12 months, pumpkin seed oil moved the score from 20.7 to 8.7, a drop of 12.0 points, reported as a 58.0 percent change. Saw palmetto oil moved it from 18.2 to 9.1, a drop of 9.2 points, a 50.3 percent change. The combination moved it from 19.0 to 4.7, a drop of 14.3 points, a 75.3 percent change, which took the average score from the moderate band into the mild band of 7 or below. The combination produced the largest point drop. The paper also reports no statistically significant difference among the groups at any time point. A larger point drop and a non-significant between-group test are both in the results. The second sentence stops anyone from calling the stack a proven superior arm.

Quality-of-life scores improved in the pumpkin seed and saw palmetto groups after three months, and in the combination group after six months. At 12 months the quality-of-life score had fallen by 1.7 points (40.5 percent) on pumpkin seed oil, by 1.4 points (38.9 percent) on saw palmetto oil, and by 2.2 points (57.9 percent) on the combination. Placebo quality of life did not change.

Serum PSA stayed flat in the placebo, pumpkin seed, and saw palmetto groups. In the combination group it fell from 1.2 to 0.7 nanograms per millilitre, a 41.7 percent reduction. Prostate volume drifted down in groups B, C, and D and the change was not statistically significant. Maximal flow rose on pumpkin seed oil from 14.8 to 17.0 millilitres per second (14.9 percent), with significance from six months, and on saw palmetto oil from 14.0 to 21.2 millilitres per second (51.4 percent) at 12 months. Combination flow did not change significantly. Placebo flow worsened over the year.

The within-group symptom changes are the positive urinary record for each oil. The between-group statistics do not crown the combination. Folli-Activ includes both oils because each oil has this urinary dataset and because each oil also has a hair paper of its own, not because Hong proved that taking them together beats taking either one.

The hair papers stay separate

Rossi and colleagues compared open-label Serenoa repens 320 milligrams a day with finasteride 1 milligram a day for 24 months in 100 men with mild to moderate androgenetic alopecia. Global photographs showed increased hair growth in 38 percent of the Serenoa group and 68 percent of the finasteride group. The saw palmetto change was recorded mainly at the vertex. Finasteride changed the front and the vertex. That is a saw palmetto photograph result at 320 milligrams, the same daily oil dose Hong used, in a different population and with a different endpoint.

Cho and colleagues gave 76 men with androgenetic alopecia either 400 milligrams a day of Octa Sabal Plus, which the paper identifies as pumpkin seed oil, or placebo, for 24 weeks. Mean hair count rose 40 percent on the commercial capsule and 10 percent on placebo. Hair thickness did not differ. Free testosterone did not change. The authors did not measure DHT. The hair-count result is the pumpkin seed oil hair result to cite, and the product name Octa Sabal Plus stays attached to it so the commercial capsule is not quietly replaced by Folli-Activ.

Gossell-Williams, Davis, and O'Connor add a rat finding: oral pumpkin seed oil inhibited testosterone-induced prostate enlargement, significant at 4.0 milligrams per 100 grams of body weight (P less than 0.02). That is prostate weight in rats, useful as a testosterone-driven growth experiment, and it is not the Cho hair count.

Iehlé's enzyme work still belongs with the saw palmetto half of the pair. A lipido-sterol extract inhibited both human 5-alpha-reductase isoforms, with inhibition constants of 7.2 micrograms per millilitre for type 1 and 4.9 for type 2. Pumpkin seed oil's rat paper did not report that enzyme assay. The two botanicals are neighbours in the bottle because their published endpoints overlap on the prostate and diverge in the exact test each paper ran.

Packs

A shopper can hold both facts. Saw palmetto oil at 320 milligrams a day lowered urinary symptom scores in Hong's group C and, in a different study, accompanied a vertex photograph change in 38 percent of men over two years. Pumpkin seed oil at 320 milligrams a day lowered urinary scores in Hong's group B, and a 400 milligram Octa Sabal Plus course accompanied a 40 percent mean hair-count rise at 24 weeks against 10 percent on placebo. Folli-Activ puts both botanicals in one 90-capsule oral formula with eight further ingredients, brand MY NPM FOLLI-ACTIV. On this site, 1 bottle is RM169, 3 bottles are RM447, and 6 bottles are RM699 with free shipping. Checkout is by card. The studies used their own oils at their own doses.

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