Grow Youthful: How to Slow Your Aging and Enjoy Extraordinary Health
Grow Youthful: How to Slow Your Aging and Enjoy Extraordinary Health

Benign prostatic hyperplasia / hypertrophy (BPH)

What is BPH?

Symptoms of BPH

BPH and cancer

BPH causes and risk factors

Prevention / remedies / cures / treatment for BPH

References

What is BPH?

Enlargement of the prostate gland (benign prostatic hyperplasia, benign prostatic hypertrophy or BPH) is a common problem in middle-aged and older men. The urethra is choked by an enlarged prostate gland.

BPH almost always involves hyperplasia (an increase in the number of cells) rather than hypertrophy (a growth in the size of the individual cells).

BPH rarely occurs in men under the age of 40. There is evidence of BPH in 40% of men in their 50's, nearly 70% in their 60's, and up to 90% in their seventies and eighties. In nearly half these cases, the symptoms are severe enough to need treatment. The degree of severity ranges from being a nuisance to requiring major accommodations to a person's lifestyle. The most serious situation is an inability to urinate, which may need hospitalisation and bladder catheterization. BPH is not normally painful.

Interestingly, in most men oestradiol levels start climbing from the age of fifty and peak in their late 60's. During the same period progesterone levels decline, just the opposite to oestradiol.

Symptoms of BPH

BPH and cancer

Elevated and rising levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA) have a high correlation with prostate cancer. However, there is disagreement on whether BPH can lead to prostate cancer, which is one of the most common forms of cancer in men.

High levels of the female estrogen hormones and chemicals that mimic estrogen exist in our environment today. Studies show that when prostate cells are exposed to excessive estrogen, they proliferate and eventually become cancerous. Having sufficient progesterone protects against this effect, and to a lesser extent testosterone also protects. Unfortunately, as men age their levels of both progesterone and testosterone fall. This is why BPH is so common in older men, and almost unheard of in young men. As you would expect, when the low level of progesterone (and testosterone) is corrected, the BPH cellular growth (the enlargement or swelling) and even cancers are reversed.

BPH causes and risk factors

Prevention / remedies / cures / treatment for BPH

After increasing your zinc and making other changes suggested on this Grow Youthful web page, it will normally take at least a couple of months to notice a significant reduction in prostate size, but symptoms of prostate enlargement may improve quite quickly.

References

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