Healthy Tips

Prostate health is one of the most important aspects of a man’s health and is essential in the prevention of a number of conditions that can affect it. In recent years the issue of prostate health has moved to the forefront of many news and media stories and many of us know or have known someone who has suffered from prostate problems.

If you’re a man, chances are that you will eventually have some form of problem with your prostate gland.  More than half of men over age 60 develop an enlarged prostate, a condition known as benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH.  In addition, the American Cancer Society estimates that more than 184,000 men in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year.  New cases of prostate cancer have increased rapidly in recent years.  Most of this increase has been attributed to the greater use of screening guidelines, and especially the widespread introduction of the Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) test.

The causes of prostate cancer are not fully known. The risk of developing prostate cancer rises sharply after age 50, and risk doubles every ten years thereafter.  Men with close family members (father or brother) who have had prostate cancer are more likely to get prostate cancer themselves, especially if their relatives were young when they got the disease. Fortunately there is promising research that shows preventive measures and early detection screening should help reduce the risk of death from prostate cancer.

The three common diseases of the prostate are benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), commonly known as an enlarged prostate, prostatitis (inflammation of the prostate) and prostate cancer.  The modern lifestyle of stress; long hours of sitting, driving or TV watching; stuffing food and emotions; eating fast food, flesh and milk products; regular intake of sugar, caffeine, and alcohol; and environmental toxicity all set the stage for chronic, debilitating and degenerative diseases, including prostate enlargement (BPH Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy) and prostate cancer.

We have become a nutritionally advanced culture who has learned more and more about natural supplements and products that can help us achieve and maintain health much longer than we used to, as well as to eat the right foods that will make our organs function at peak levels well into late ages.  The foods that a man can eat to support the health of your prostate actually have multiple health benefits in addition to prostate health.  This is because they are mostly classed into a coined group of foods dubbed “super foods” for their healing and health promoting properties, as well as therapeutic uses. 

As long as you maintain a quality diet with a variety of color, less red meats and more fruits and veggies, you can rest assured you are doing all you can to promote a long, healthy and complication free life for your prostate gland.  Not only that, these foods will benefit other areas of your health as well, making it well worth your while to pay attention to what you put in your body.

Prostate health is extremely important and requires the same attention that you would afford any other part of your body.  It is emerging as a key priority in health care today, but despite the increasing awareness of its affects many men remain unaware of its symptoms, the damage it can do and the treatments available.

Men know that it is important to take care of your health as much as women. With diseases like prostate cancer threatening the male body, it clear that men need to be more careful with their health.

Natural prostate health involves giving your prostate the internal protection it needs. That means finding a natural health regimen that will help to prevent your body from wearing down and producing potentially irregular, cancerous cells.

Natural prostate health also involves knowing which type of supplements will protect and nourish your prostate.

A natural approach to prostate health may be your best option in the long run if you are currently not having any prostate problems. If you increase the amount of antioxidants you consume and simultaneously decrease the amount of preservatives you consume, you may be greatly reducing your chances of getting cancer or other prostate irregularities.

Natural prostate health is the best choice that many men are making today to ensure their health, since natural health is about taking care of your body as a whole. The emphasis on the prostate is so that men are made aware that indeed they too can protect themselves from getting prostate cancer.

Natural prostate cancer institutes understand that men need to have the know-how, so that they will not be caught unaware.
This is why you should contact your nearest natural health institute before you ever experience irregularities to discuss what options you have.

Let natural prostate health help you all the way, which is the rest of your life. Rather than bombarding your body with chemicals and radiation after you develop cancer, attack it proactively by living a more healthy lifestyle.

Make that commitment to your prostate’s health by committing yourself to a natural health way of life. It is your ticket to ensure that you are not suddenly caught by prostate cancer unaware.

In my clinic, American Diseases of the Prostate, as in any clinic that sees a large number of prostate cancer patients, I’ve encountered prostate cancers that deviate from the well-established behavior of the common adenocarcinoma. One of those unusual forms of prostate cancer is neuroendocrine carcinoma.

Neuroendocrine cells are found in the normal prostate gland, where they have been shown to produce a range of hormones including serotonin, bombesin, and calcitonin. However, we do not know the role these neuroendocrine cells play in normal prostate biology. In the standard adenocarcinoma of the prostate gland, neuroendocrine cells are nearly always found scattered throughout the cancer mass. In this setting, these neuroendocrine cells do not make PSA, are not growing and do not have the androgen receptor. In the test tube, even though the neuroendocrine cells do not grow, the hormones produced by these cells are capable of fueling the growth of the adenocarcinoma cells. One report claimed that in the prostate cancer specimens obtained at surgery, the prostate cancer cells near the neuroendocrine cells were growing more rapidly than those distant from these cells. This suggests that the neuroendocrine cells might fuel prostate cancer progression. In fact, the larger the proportion of the cancer mass composed of neuroendocrine cells at diagnosis, the more likely the patient would do poorly over time.

While serum chromogranin A has generally been found to be the best marker to detect the development of neuroendocrine cells in prostate cancer, there is some evidence that it is more than just a marker. For example, if you add chromogranin A to prostate cancer in tissue culture, it triggers the formation of proteins that improve the cancer cell’s resistance to treatment.

In prostate cancer research, there are certain classic studies that define issues with great clarity. In 1991, Kadmon, et al. showed that an elevated chromogranin A level made evolution of hormone resistance more likely. Furthermore, once hormonal therapy started, chromogranin A levels initially increased in many patients, but would later decline back to normal. When chromogranin A levels stayed elevated or when it started to increase late in hormonal therapy, hormone resistance was very likely to follow. This observation has been repeatedly confirmed.

Up to this point, we have been discussing the impact of neuroendocrine cells that are not themselves capable of growth and where the impact appears to be thought an effect on the prostatic adenocarcinoma cells. In small cell carcinoma of the prostate gland we have neuroendocrine cells that are able to rapidly grow and spread. Again, these cells make very little or no PSA and make little or no androgen receptor. While they can make chromogranin A and other neuroendocrine markers, in many cases they make no detectable markers.

To read the remainder of this article on neuroendocrine carcinoma of the prostate gland as well as other articles on unusual forms of prostate cancer, visit http://www.prostateforum.com/back-issues.aspx where you can download Volume 10 Issue 9 of Prostate Forum.

If a man in your life is at risk for developing prostate cancer symptoms, here’s some information you might want to pass along. While a connection between eating meat and enjoying high fat dairy products and cancer of the prostate has been suspected for a while, recent research by a team at Oxford University has been able to confirm the link.

Experts know that a diet rich in meat and high fat dairy products is likely to raise levels of a hormone called Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1 for short) that has been shown to promote cell growth. In fact, cells fed IGF-1 grow much more quickly, and may be part of the reason scientists worry it will aid the spread of tumors.

The work, conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford, reviewed the results of a dozen blood sample studies that included almost 9.000 men. By looking closely at this data, the researchers were able to more clearly identify the link between IGF-1 and this form of cancer. The team found that men with high levels of IGF-1 were 40% more likely to have prostate cancer than those with lower levels.

According lead researcher Dr. Andrew Roddam, “What we found was a modest association at best, but it was statistically significant. A lot of the individual studies found the same trend but were too underpowered for their results to be reliable.”

And while no one can say how much diet effects levels of IGF-1 in the body, Dr. Roddam, a Cancer Research UK epidemiologist at Oxford University, estimates it could be up to 15% higher for anyone who eats lots of dairy and meat. Previous studies have reported that IGF-1 levels are higher in those who eat a lot of meat, milk, butter and cheese.

But why are these delicious foods so bad?

First because they seem to be a large source of saturated fats and are an all too familiar part of most modern diets. These types of fats do damage to the body that we’re only just beginning to understand. What’s more, few people eat enough of the natural, good for you fruits and vegetables that are sources of antioxidants and other nutrients a body needs to stay healthy and strong. Add in our lack of physical activity and you can see why we’re headed for trouble.

Interestingly, the risk of prostate cancer is lower among men who are vegetarians as well as in populations that eat more rice, soybeans and vegetables.

Each year, prostate cancer claims nearly 30,000 lives in the US, and another 10,000 in the UK. To find out if the man in your life is at risk, take a look at factors identified by the American Cancer Society:

- Risks of prostate cancer increase as you age, especially after 50.

- Your risk of prostate cancer doubles if you have a father or brother with the disease.

- Prostate cancer is more common in African American men, and these patients are typically diagnosed at a later stage than other men.

- Prostate cancer is most common in North America, northwestern Europe, Australia and the Caribbean islands; it’s less common in Asia, Africa, Central and South America.

- Obese men are at an increased risk of developing this form of cancer, as well as many other diseases.

Research continues and treatment options for prostate cancer symptoms are improving all the time. If you or someone you love is at risk, or has just been diagnosed, don’t panic but do learn all you can about this disease and ways to stay well. One of the first steps may simply to substitute that burger with a piece of fruit or vegetables instead.

In case you are unfamiliar of what the prostate is, it is a gland within the male reproductive system which is located right underneath the bladder and right in front of the rectum. When you have a health prostate, it is similar to the size of a walnut. In the event that the prostate enlarges, it will squeeze the urethra and it will either slow or completely stop the urine from making its way from the bladder to its final destination, the penis. Within this article, we are going to discuss prostate cancer so that you may be better aware of what this cancer entails.

The very first thing that you should know is that all prostate enlargements aren’t cancer. In all actuality, there can be many causes of prostate enlargement other than cancer. For instance, benign prostatic hyperplasia or BPH is used to describe a condition where there is abnormal growth of the benign cells which is noncancerous. Within this condition, the prostate enlarges and as a result it squeezes the urethra, which prevents the normal urine flow.

Within the United States, BPH is known to be a very common problem among men that are over the age of fifty. There are some men that may experience symptoms that are so severe that they need treatment. For all men that are fifty years old and older, screening is recommended for prostate cancer. A simple blood test will be able to test for all of signs of cancer, not to mention that there is an examination known as the digital rectal examination.

First, the blood test will be conducted, and the only time that the digital rectal examination is performed is if there is some type of indication that there could be a problem. Below, you will learn all of the risk factors that are known to increase your likelihood of developing prostate cancer.

1. Smoking: By now you should realize that smoking will put each and every individual at a much higher risk of developing all different types of cancer.

2. Age: All of the men that are over the age of fifty are more than likely going to develop the disease in comparison to younger men.

3. Race: All of the men that are of the African American race are more likely to develop prostate cancer than any of the other ethnic groups.

4. Family History: In the event that within the family, there is a history of developing prostate cancer, your risk is going to increase.

5. Diet: Any diet that consists of high amounts of animal fat is believed to increase your risk of developing the prostate cancer.

In the event that you think you may be suffering from prostate cancer, it is very important that you contact your physician right away.

All of the modern day men need to be attempting to put a smile on their face when facing the rather unfortunate disease, prostate cancer. The reason why they should have a braver face is because the proton prostate cancer therapy method of treatment could mean a specific way of addressing all of these problems that are associated with cancer efficiently and all of the complications that it normally brings along.

Proton prostate cancer therapy is the very last option for any patient that is suffering from prostate cancer. Most patients are on their hands and knees once they reach this expensive treatment as their only option because there isn’t any other option for treatment after this. However, when it comes to solving cancer cases, proton prostate cancer therapy has proven to be rather victorious.

Incontinence is among the most damaging of the side effects that are associated with the radiation treatment that is given for prostate cancer. In the event that the urinary sphincter becomes damaged during the process of the radiation treatment, the individual patient is going to experience several different degrees of the urinary incontinence, which is an unwilled urinating action.

Even though this can be life-changing, there are some occasions when a corrective surgery may be applied. All of the serious cases of incontinence are rare without only one to three percent of men experiencing incontinence that are undergoing radiation treatment. Even though all of the symptoms are normally going to go away at longest within a year, it is known to be permanent among less than one percent of the men that have been treated by radiation.

When taking everything into consideration that is mentioned above concerning the radiation therapy defects, there is a new treatment that is accompanied by all of the latest technology that is referred to as the therapy for prostate treatment. Under this therapy, the probability of all of the side effects is going to be extremely less when compared to that of the radiation therapy.

This prostate cancer therapy is very helpful when it comes to solving problems like signs of prostate cancer such as the inability to urinate and a weak urine flow. Overall, this condition is extremely painful and it is going to be a hindrance to an individuals normal activities. Within the majority of cases, the blood within the urine or the semen is able to be found.

The presence of a burning sensation when you are urinating and pain within the lower back are also signs of prostate cancer. In the event that you are interested in learning more about prostate cancer and prostate cancer therapy have a consultation with your physician who will be able to tell you a lot more and answer all of the questions that you may have.