Despite no clinical evidence, the oil is used to treat prostate issues in an international market estimated at $200m this year
Mockingbirds announce the first signs of light as Elbin Sales Pérez disappears into a tightly knit maze of saw palmetto, a creeping, palm like shrub that blankets Florida. He’s searching for a berry nestled under the stalks of the spiky plant that grows wild in the American south.
While the native plant is almost synonymous with the state’s landscape, few people know the plant bears fruit. Even fewer understand that those berries – the oil of which is used primarily to treat prostate issues, despite next to no clinical evidence of its efficacy – are at the center of an international botanical market estimated to exceed $200m this year.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2J32e1E
