This one's for men of a certain age and the women who run them. It is also the story of "The Quest for the No-P Night", a journey in search of a lost state of being that most men will undertake at a certain stage in their lives.
The prostate is a gland the size of a walnut that sits under the bladder and helps make seminal fluid. By age 50 nearly every man will develop some degree of prostate enlargement with benign growths developing inside it. This can lead to frequent urination at night, difficulty starting, incomplete voiding and dribbling. The condition is known as benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and is not life threatening, although it's symptoms can greatly impact quality of life, especially if it is treated invasively. The relentless frustration of chronic urinary urgency is a major cause of sleep disturbance and loss of quality of life as men age. It doesn't have to be this way.
Prostate cancer on the other hand is the cancer that kills more men than any other after lung cancer & will soon overtake it. Roughly one man in 5 living in a rich country will develop a diagnosable tumour and most men over 60 probably have some form of prostate cancer but don't know it. The majority of these tumours will not grow fast enough to cause trouble before he dies of something else. Most men die with prostate cancer, not of it - prompting the prominent US urologist Willet Whitmore to observe "growing old is invariably fatal, while prostate cancer is only sometimes so". Nonetheless, prostate cancer kills some 50,000 American men every year & once it has developed it is hard to cure. It is also a long agony. Not a nice way to go & a quick death from heart attack is much to be preferred. The incidence of prostate cancer as one of the world's biggest killers is increasing fast all over the world, up 30% everywhere. In Hong Kong it increased 66% between 1979 - 90, in Canada since 1969 it has more than doubled and doubled in Japan too in the last 10 years.
Prostate cancer is usually diagnosed late because there are few symptoms. If not caught early it is hard to cure and the conventional treatment options, whether for prostate cancer or BPH, very often lead to side effects that are extremely unappealing & most men would prefer not even to think about. One hundred years ago the standard treatment was castration and today the risk of impotence & incontinence following treatment remains high. Perhaps worse, depending on your perspective, such treatment in the case of cancer, does not necessarily lead to increased life expectancy. Expert medical opinion is more or less evenly divided whether it's better to intervene or wait & see.
What has caused such an increase in the growth of prostate cancer?
The first reason would be demographic in that men are living longer. The second biggest reason is a high fat diet & eating too much of the wrong food. Technically both prostate cancer and BPH are caused by hormonal imbalances that come with age when testosterone levels in men fall and estrogen increases The wrong kind of testosterone (DHT) binds to the prostate cells that regulate growth, pushing against the urethra and bladder, restricting or sometimes blocking the urine flow. These cells may become cancerous, in which case a tumour develops or the growth is benign resulting in BPH. Either way, most men are eventually affected and often by both. BPH does not inevitably lead to prostate cancer but does increase the chance of it.
It is a dismal prospect and no wonder we men don't want to think about it much. But just as women publicly addressed the prevalence of breast cancer some 20 years ago, so men need to face the threat squarely so they may see what can be done about preventing or successfully treating the disease. Obviously the best option is preventative & not to develop either condition. Apart from a good diet there is an enormous amount you can do to prevent yourself ever developing both BPH and prostate cancer in terms of lifestyle modification and the use of powerful herbs & antioxidants, which have been proven to be both therapeutic & preventative and long used as drugs in Europe.
Fortunately with the introduction of the PSA test it is now a lot easier to diagnose prostate cancer in it's earlier stages & every man over 45 would be well advised to take this test annually. Previously doctors had to rely on a digital rectal examination (DRE) which only showed positive at a later stage when a sizeable tumour had already developed & very possibly metastasised. If diagnosed positively you will be faced with the decision whether to intervene aggressively, which means surgery, radiation, whole or partial chemical castration or any combination of such methods with all the risks involved. Or, to play a waiting game aided by certain drugs and dietary supplements. As noted, medical opinion is divided about this. But, unless the cancer is advanced you have the time to research - and that, faced with such an eventuality is what you have to do. It is a hard call but nowadays we are much luckier in that much more research & sources of information are available to us, particularly via the internet to help us reach what is a very personal decision.
BHP or enlarged prostate, though much more prevalent, is not life-threatening & is easier to treat. My own experience illustrates the point & may be helpful to men similarly afflicted. Suddenly, one night in my late 40's I had to get up to pee 4 times. Normally I went to bed & slept like a babe right through until the next morning without urinating. From that night on I had what I called 3-P or 4-P Nights, sometimes as many as 5. I also often found it hard to start & not dribble. I usually felt as though I hadn't completely emptied my bladder. The quality of my sleep deteriorated a lot. I put off doing anything about it for about a year before the nagging fear of prostate cancer drove me to consult a urologist. I went to the head of urology at UCLA, supposedly the best in the land. They gave me a PSA and a digital exam which ruled out cancer but confirmed my prostate was enlarged, that I had BHP. Their advise was to do nothing and just put up with the symptoms, which I did for another year or so given the unattractive alternatives.
Qiuckily for me at about that time I was being treated in LA by the best integrative doctor I have ever come across and he put me on a herbal complex of Saw Palmetto, Pygeum & Nettle extract. In about 6 months I was down to a 1-P Night. On my next visit, I lived in Hong Kong at the time, he referred me to his urologist and I again tested negative for cancer. The urologist also suggested a 'prostate massage'. A What? I squeaked nervously. This involved a 2-minute process repeated 3 times in a week. It felt a bit strange but was not at all painful and it shrunk my prostate by a third. Suddenly I was down to a 'No-P Night'. I dread to think how many men have undergone surgery with all it's attendant risks, when a simple 'massage' & some herbs would have done the trick. In obvious trepidation I inquired, "Doctor, how often do I need to do this?", imagining being thus 'fingered' monthly for the rest of my days. "Oh, you'll be right for another 3 years or so", he laughed reassuringly. And so it has proved. No more sleepless nights. Between the massage & the herbs I mostly have No-P Nights with an occasional 1-P Night and not only that, when I go I don't have to stand interminably waiting to start and the stream is strong & vigorous, reminiscent of my younger days. Of such things is happiness made.
So here are the recommendations for men wishing to prevent or treat BPH and wishing to avoid the possibility of mutilating surgery.
First of all rule out cancer by having a blood PSA test & a digital exam. Repeat annually.
Next, the best option for prevention and treatment through which most men experience significant alleviation of symptoms is by using Saw Palmetto (160 mg) extract by itself, but even more effectively in combination with Pygeum (50 mg) & Nettle (120 mg) extracts in the correct doses taken 2 x daily. This combination of ingredients not only serves to shrink the size of the prostate, but also alleviates all other BPH symptoms, as well as being a potent means of inhibiting cancer. All these products are available separately or more conveniently in a combined formulation. Make sure you get it from a reliable maker though. Herbs are a notoriously easy way to cheat the consumer and many well-known manufacturers who should know better sell saw palmetto ' berries' very cheaply, knowing that it does not provide the standardised extracts needed to do any good at all.
Soy extracts or Genistein in a dose of 135 mg 2 x per day helps block estrogen receptor sites & shrinks or prevents prostate enlargement.
You should also have your urologist evaluate the size of your prostate gland. A severely overgrown prostate may benefit from a massage and/or 5 mg of Proscar every day or every other day, in addition to phytotherapies such as saw palmetto, pygeum and nettle extracts.
If severe symptoms of BPH persist, consider aromatase-inhibiting therapy to suppress excess serum estrogen that may be a primary factor in the development and progression of the disease. Arimadex in the low dose of just 0.5 mg 2 x per week, usually produces a dramatic reduction in serum estrogen.
If all else fails & urinary blockage manifests, you may have no alternative but to undergo the transurethral resection procedure (TURP) that involves the insertion of a 'roto-rooter' device to literally grind away and remove excess prostate growth. Some men undergo an outpatient procedure and experience little discomfort, while others encounter pain and other long term effects, such as impotence & incontinence. Even after TURP surgery the use of phyto-extracts and/or drugs can help to keep the prostate gland from overgrowing again.
So if you are a man in your 40's above all get a PSA. If you are starting to have any of the symptoms of BPH don't ignore it, go see a urologist and start taking the herbal extracts that can both prevent & alleviate it. The bottom line is, if you'll excuse the phrase, and if you want to avoid "The Quest for the
No P-Night" is........Know thy Prostate!
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the intention is for you to lose weight permanently & be healthier in a way that is so simple and non-time consuming that there can be no excuse for failure, other than you don't start or keep at it."
