Saw palmetto and boron: the SodaPeak blend arithmetic
One result on this site is a proof rather than an observation. This is it, and it is five lines long.
Saw palmetto and boron amino acid chelate cannot both be at a studied dose in the same bottle. Not unlikely — impossible, given only the 1,200 mg total and the order the panel prints.
The label does not say which of the two is short, and nothing published about this product makes that knowable. The two are also, separately, the two ingredients the seller’s brief and both marketing images leave out.
The proof
- Saw palmetto sits at position 3, and the lowest dose anyone has studied is 320 mg a day.
- Descending order means positions one and two each weigh at least as much as position 3. So the first three together account for at least 3 × 320 = 960 mg.
- The blend totals 1,200 mg, so the remaining 5 positions share at most 1,200 − 960 = 240 mg.
- Boron sits last, at position 8, and its studied dose needs 60 mg of chelate. Descending order means every position from 4 to 8 weighs at least that much too — 5 × 60 = 300 mg.
- 300 mg is more than 240 mg. There is no way to split 1,200 mg, in the order this label prints, that puts both of them at a studied dose.
One of saw palmetto and boron is below its studied dose in every bottle of this product. The label does not say which, and nothing published about it makes that knowable.
Reading it slowly
The derivation above is compressed. Here it is at walking pace, because a proof that a reader cannot follow is just an assertion with numbers in it.
Start at position three. Saw palmetto sits there, and the dose it has been studied at is 320 mg a day, given as 160 mg twice daily. Suppose the product delivers it.
Descending order then forces positions one and two to weigh at least 320 mg each as well, because nothing above position three can weigh less than position three. So horny goat weed, tongkat ali and saw palmetto together account for at least 960 mg of the blend.
The blend is 1,200 mg. That leaves at most 240 mg to be shared by nettle, wild yam, sarsaparilla, orchic substance and boron — five ingredients.
Now go to the other end. Boron sits last, at position eight, and its studied dose needs about 60 mg of a chelate. Suppose the product delivers that too. Descending order forces every position above it and below saw palmetto — positions four, five, six and seven — to weigh at least 60 mg as well. Five positions at 60 mg or more is at least 300 mg.
But we just showed those five positions have at most 240 mg between them. 300 is more than 240. The two suppositions cannot both hold.
What was assumed
Nothing about the split. Nothing about the manufacturer. No industry rule of thumb, no typical inclusion rate, no assumption that a blend is mostly its first ingredient.
Four facts were used: the blend totals 1,200 mg; the order is descending by weight; saw palmetto has been studied at 320 mg; and boron has been studied at about 60 mg of chelate. The first two are on the label. The last two are in the published literature and cited at the foot of this page.
Which one is short?
This is the honest limit of the result. The proof establishes that at least one of the two is below its studied dose. It does not establish which, and this site is not going to guess.
| If… | Then… | Can the label rule it out? |
|---|---|---|
| Saw palmetto is at 320 mg | Boron is below about 60 mg of chelate, and so is at least one of the four positions between them | No |
| Boron is at about 60 mg of chelate | Saw palmetto is below 320 mg, and so, therefore, is every ingredient below it | No |
| Neither is at its studied dose | Both are short, which is the reading most consistent with fitting eight ingredients into 1,200 mg at all | No |
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A reader who wanted this resolved would need the split, and the split is precisely what a proprietary blend is permitted not to disclose. That is the whole trade: the seller keeps the formulation private, and the buyer gives up the ability to check any of this.
The other thing these two have in common
Both supplied marketing images show six hexagonal ingredient callouts: horny goat weed, tongkat ali, saw palmetto, nettle, wild yam and sarsaparilla. The seller’s written brief lists the same six.
The panel lists eight. The two that appear on the label and nowhere else are orchic substance and boron amino acid chelate — positions seven and eight.
Step 02 on that image reads FORMULA INSIDE — selected botanicals. Six of the eight ingredients are botanicals. The seventh is bovine testicle tissue and the eighth is a mineral chelate, and neither is a botanical.
This is a small thing and it is the kind of small thing worth noticing. The two ingredients missing from the marketing are exactly the two that would complicate the marketing: one contradicts the vegetarian seal, and the other is half of the arithmetic above.
We are not suggesting the omission was calculated. We are saying a buyer who reads the images and not the panel will not know that either ingredient is in the product.
Orchic substance, position seven
Bovine testicle tissue. It sits seventh, which gives it a ceiling of about 171 mg, and there is no dose to compare that against because there is no human trial.
- What it is
- Dried tissue from the testicles of cattle, used in supplements on a long-standing glandular-therapy rationale that the corresponding animal organ supports the corresponding human one.
- What has been shown
- Nothing, in humans. There is no established dose and no clinical trial to cite, which is why this ingredient has no verdict on the budget chart rather than a failing one.
- Why the source matters
- Specified risk materials from cattle are prohibited in food under 21 CFR 189.5, and testicular tissue is not among them. What is not published for this product is the source country, the age of the cattle or the processing — the three things a reader would want.
- What it rules out
- The product cannot be vegetarian, independently of the gelatin capsule. Two separate animal-derived components, and a vegetarian seal in the same asset folder.
Boron, position eight
Boron has real human data behind it, and the data is routinely described as more than it is.
| Study | Who | What was given | What it found |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nielsen and colleagues, 1987 | 12 postmenopausal women | 3 mg/day of boron, after a boron-poor diet | Serum testosterone and 17-beta-estradiol rose during repletion. This is a repletion study in women, not a supplementation study in men |
| Naghii and colleagues, 2011 | 8 healthy men | 10 mg/day for a week | Free testosterone rose and estradiol fell over the week. Eight men, seven days, no control group |
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Those are the studies. They are small, short and, in the 1987 case, about repleting a deficiency rather than adding to a normal intake. The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements sets the tolerable upper intake level for adults at 20 mg a day of elemental boron.
The figure we will not give you
A boron amino acid chelate is typically a few per cent elemental boron by weight, and the studied dose in the table is quoted here as about 60 mg of chelate on that basis.
This label states no percentage. So the elemental boron content of this product is not knowable from anything supplied, and we are not going to multiply a ceiling by a trade-typical percentage and print the result as if it were a figure about this bottle. It would be the single easiest number to fabricate on this site, which is a good reason not to.
What follows, and what does not
What this label does well
- The result is a proof, not an estimate. It holds at every split consistent with the label.
- It uses the product’s own printed order and total, so it cannot be answered by disclosing more about the split — only by disclosing that the split contradicts the order, which would be a labeling problem of a different kind.
- Every input favored the product: the lowest studied dose, the most generous ceiling, no deduction for standardization.
What it does not
- It says nothing about whether either ingredient would do anything at its studied dose. Saw palmetto’s own Cochrane review found little to no benefit for the thing it is usually taken for.
- It says nothing about safety. Neither ingredient is dangerous at these weights and nothing here suggests otherwise.
- It is not a claim that the product is mislabeled. Everything described on this page is a legal way to label a supplement, which is the uncomfortable part.
References
The sources behind the numbers on this page.
- U.S. Government Publishing Office21 CFR 101.36 — Nutrition labeling of dietary supplements, including the proprietary blend and descending-order requirements — Code of Federal Regulations · source
- U.S. Government Publishing Office21 CFR 189.5 — Prohibited cattle materials, including the definitions of specified risk materials and of gelatin — Code of Federal Regulations · source
- Bent, Kane, Shinohara et al. — 2006Saw palmetto for benign prostatic hyperplasia — New England Journal of Medicine · DOI 10.1056/NEJMoa053085 · PMID 16467543 · source
- Marks, Hess, Dorey et al. — 2001Tissue effects of saw palmetto and finasteride: use of biopsy cores for in situ quantification of prostatic androgens — Urology, volume 57 · DOI 10.1016/S0090-4295(00)01052-9 · source
- Franco, Trivisonno, Sgarbossa et al. — 2023Serenoa repens for the treatment of lower urinary tract symptoms due to benign prostatic enlargement — Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews · DOI 10.1002/14651858.CD001423.pub4 · source
- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer CenterSaw Palmetto — integrative medicine herb monograph — MSKCC.org · source
- Nielsen, Hunt, Mullen, Hunt — 1987Effect of dietary boron on mineral, estrogen, and testosterone metabolism in postmenopausal women — The FASEB Journal, volume 1 · DOI 10.1096/fasebj.1.5.3678698 · PMID 3678698 · source
- Naghii, Mofid, Asgari et al. — 2011Comparative effects of daily and weekly boron supplementation on plasma steroid hormones and proinflammatory cytokines — Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology · DOI 10.1016/j.jtemb.2010.10.001 · source
- NIH Office of Dietary SupplementsBoron — Health Professional Fact Sheet — ods.od.nih.gov · source
- WebMD / Natural MedicinesOrchic Extract — uses, evidence and dosing — WebMD.com · source
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration — 2020Import Alert 17-04: Detention Without Physical Examination of Bulk Shipments of High-Risk Bovine Tissue from BSE-Countries — FDA.gov · source
See the SodaPeak packs
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