Pumpkin Seed Oil for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia
Pumpkin seed oil shows only weak, low-quality evidence for benign prostatic hyperplasia: the largest trial found a statistically significant but clinically trivial symptom improvement, and no major urological guideline recommends it. It is not an established treatment and should not replace proven therapies.
Why this grade7-layer evidence engine
The grade is Weak (C) because the human evidence is thin and the measured effect is small. The largest, best-designed trial, the double-blind GRANU study (PMID 25196580, n=1,431), found that whole pumpkin seed lowered the International Prostate Symptom Score by only about 1.1 points versus placebo over 12 months, below the roughly 3-point threshold usually considered clinically meaningful, and the pumpkin seed extract arm showed no benefit at all.
Supporting trials are weaker still. Hong 2009 (PMID 20098586) reported symptom relief from pumpkin seed oil comparable to saw palmetto, but it enrolled just 47 men, was open-label, and showed no change in prostate volume or PSA. The 2,245-patient Curbicin study (PMID 11025395) used a pumpkin-plus-saw-palmetto combination with no placebo control or blinding, so it cannot isolate any effect of the oil itself.
Authorities are unconvinced. The FDA takes no efficacy position, the EFSA rejected a related health claim for lack of established cause and effect, and major clinics (Mayo, Cleveland, Harvard) and the AUA guidelines are silent on pumpkin seed oil for BPH. The mechanism is plausible and side effects are minor, but the evidence does not support it as a reliable treatment.
Scoring transparency
All scores computed by a 7-layer evidence engine — fully auditable▸View the full decision path (audit trail)
- compute_raw_score — 加權公式: L2×0.30 + L3×0.25 + L5×0.25 + L11×0.10 + L1×0.10 = 0.488
- tier_from_score — 依分數區間映射至 tier letter
- apply_hec_rules — 無高階證據可裁決
- tier_strict_requirement_check — Tier 條件達標，未降階
- detect_disputes — 偵測到 0 個 hard + 0 個 soft dispute
- decide_status — 依 tier + dispute 結果決定 status