Separating Good Science from Bad
In medicine, there is a broad consensus as to what constitutes proof that a drug is a useful treatment of a disease. The most powerful evidence is a clinical trial in which patients are randomly assigned to the drug or placebo. Alternatively, the randomization could be between a new drug and an old drug. These are sometimes called Phase III clinical trials. The best randomized controlled trials include large numbers of patients followed for years. Large numbers are needed to ensure that the differences seen are not due to chance, but indeed reflect a solid reproducible difference. Duration of a study is important because, with prostate cancer, we want to make sure that the benefit is durable.

In prostate cancer treatment, we do not have nearly enough randomized controlled trials and we often have to make due with studies that are less convincing such as the “clinical experience” of well-known physicians, epidemiological reporting, and laboratory studies. Time and again, patients take a supplement at doses ten or 20 times the highest known safe dose. Time and again, they damage themselves in this way.

The supplements suggested here are recommended because they have been subjected to at least one randomized controlled trial that demonstrates a supplement to be safe and effective. There are some exceptions. If a supplement has other well accepted health benefits and known record of safety, a well done Phase II clinical trial has been deemed sufficient. The supplements listed as "not recommended" are some of the more popular supplements for which there is not enough information to justify their use.