A category with a large supplement industry and a small evidence base. Ratings here are deliberately conservative.
Prostate health, testosterone and male-specific outcomes.
4 foods, grouped by the strongest rating any of its claims in this area reaches. Ratings describe the research, not the food. How ratings are decided.
Early human work, or mostly lab and animal research.
Not enough human research to say anything useful yet.
Crassostrea virginica
Filter-feeding bivalve molluscs, farmed and wild-harvested, whose flavour tracks the water they grew in closely enough that…
Prostate health: Evidence is limited for oysters affecting male reproductive or prostate outcomes. The reputation rests on their zinc content and long-standing folklore; no controlled human trial has tested oysters for these endpoints.
Punica granatum
A thick-skinned fruit filled with hundreds of juice-filled arils, each containing a seed. Commercial juice is usually pressed…
Prostate health: Early single-arm studies suggested pomegranate might slow the rise of prostate-specific antigen after treatment, but the larger placebo-controlled trials that followed did not confirm it. Taken together the evidence does not support a dependable effect.
Cucurbita pepo
The hulled green kernels of certain pumpkin and squash varieties, eaten raw or roasted. The USDA reference entry is for the dried…
Prostate health: Pumpkin seed oil is one of the most heavily marketed supplements for benign prostatic enlargement. The trials are small, mostly short, largely conducted by a narrow set of groups, and use concentrated oil extracts rather than the seeds themselves.