You've probably heard it a million times....you should eat more tomatoes for your prostate health because they contain a nutrient called lycopene.

And this is true.

But did you know that there are a broad array of nutrients, whether they be vitamins, minerals, or other antioxidants that have shown to improve or maintain the health of a man's prostate?

By the time you finish reading this article, you will probably know more about the best prostate health supplements to use than 95% of men out there.

And that's a good thing to know considering that prostate cancer comes second only to lung cancer for cancer caused deaths in American men!

First, let's talk about the mineral zinc and prostate health.

Zinc appears to play a crucial role in maintaining good prostate health, but precisely how it does this still isn't clear.

If you aren't getting enough zinc, consider using a supplement containing it. But, it's important to not overdo it.

Believe it or not, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. In fact, although you are probably not aware of it, some antioxidants that normally assist the body by fighting free radicals can generate free radicals themselves if too much is taken.

In fact, one study has even shown that more than 100 mg of zinc per day can actually increase a man's chances of developing advanced prostate cancer!

Again, this sort of harm from excess can happen for many things not just zinc.

Prostate Health Formulas

Good prostate health formulas should contain something called beta sitosterol. Everyone talks about saw palmetto, but they should be talking about beta sitosterol which is literally many hundreds even thousands of times more powerful and effective than saw palmetto.

Here's why:

Saw Palmetto supplements are comprised almost entirely of "fatty acids" with only a very small part "sterols." Even the best Saw Palmetto prostate supplements made from standarized extracts are approximately 85% fatty acids.

What's important to understand here is that the fatty acids have no therapeutic value. On the contrary, it is the "sterol" component that makes up the active constituents -- the part you want.

The active sterol part is the source of saw palmetto's benefits.

Have you seen studies showing that saw palmetto sometimes works and sometimes doesnt?

In our opinion, this is because saw palmetto isn't that effective to begin with. It just doesn't contain enough active constituents, the sterols.

And in those studies where it does seem to work with mixed results, our conjecture is that higher quality saw palmetto was probably used in such studies.

Back to beta sitosterol as one of the best supplements for prostate health. This "sterol" component mentioned above from saw palmetto is in fact beta sitosterol.

In short, beta sitosterol is only the active component part of saw palmetto, which is why several studies have shown beta sitosterol is extremely effective.

Another one of the best supplements for prostate health is corn silk extract.

Any man who suffers from prostatitis or enlarged prostate gland problems (BPH) knows that their condition is associated with inflammation. One of the symptoms of this sort of inflammation is a weakened flow of the urine stream and dribbling.

Corn silk may be beneficial here because it acts as an anti-inflammatory and as a natural diuretic, and therefore may help to increase urine flow and reduce pain associated with the inflammation of the prostate.

Of course, there is also lycopene mentioned at the start of this article. Lycopene is indeed an important nutrient to be used in quality prostate health formulas -- or you can get it from eating foods, like fresh tomatoes.

And, no, ketchup does not count as a fresh tomato food! In fact, even if ketchup did contain any good lycopene content, the benefits would be more than offset by all the horrible high fructose corn syrup in such products.

Lastly, although you can't get these in prostate health supplements, the US National Cancer Institute did a study which revealed that men who consumed just 1/3 rd of an ounce (that's not much at all) of onions, scallions, garlic and chives per day were far less likely to have prostate cancer.

Yes, we realize that you can buy garlic supplements and they are often sold in supplements for prostate health. But we don't believe they are effective because the beneficial compound in garlic, called allicin, is highly volatile, and is only released when the garlic is crushed or chopped, and, most importantly, quickly deteriorates.

This is why, in our opinion, a lot of garlic supplements have been shown to be ineffective because the allicin is not stable whereas fresh garlic works since you are eating it soon after you chop it up.

So when you look at supplements for prostate health, skip the garlic and just eat more of it.