Instead of taking saw palmetto, one should find ways to increase their iodine consumption. In Japan, people consume a lot of iodine. They also have almost no breast or prostate cancer problem. Well, now that they had that Fukushima disaster I am sure they will have all sorts of cancers, but prior to that catastrophic event they were doing pretty well.
There is a supplement on the market called Iodoral which comes in 12.5 mg and 50 mg doses. The 12.5 mg dose was brought on the market in an attempt to easily mimick the average daily intake of iodine for the Japanese. When once takes an iodine supplement, it is important to consume 2 big brazil buts every day to make sure you get enough selenium which is important for the processing of iodine in the thyroid gland.
For some people, 12.5 mg Iodoral tablets may be too much though and there are other less potent sources of iodine supplementation that can be explored. When supplementing with iodine, it is important to get your TSH numbers checked to make sure that they stay within a healthy range. Your body makes hormones such as T3 and T4 from iodine. If you consume too much iodine, your body will signal your thyroid gland to make more T3 and T4 then it is capable of, and a TSH test will indicate that you are hypothyroid when fact you aren’t – you are just under-producing T3 and T4 relative to the amount of raw materials (iodine) that you are consuming.
However, you will be overworking your thyroid gland and that is not a good thing. So iodine in excess is not the best prostate supplement.