Benign Prostate Hyperplasia and Nutrition

There are nutritional theories for benign prostate hyperplasia. One theory is that you should avoid caffeine. Another theory is that animal fats are bad for the prostate. In fact animal fats are bad for the whole body! Refs. 1-3 give some explanation of BPH, although everything is not yet known about the disease.

Prostate Cancer

There are theories that vitamins and selenium may prevent prostate cancer, which starts out with symptoms that are the same as BPH (4).

Obesity

Obesity is considered a risk factor for cancer and for BPH (5). These authors considered weight loss to be a treatment for BPH.

"Black race, Hispanic ethnicity and obesity, particularly abdominal obesity, are associated with increased benign prostatic hyperplasia risk. Weight loss may be helpful for the treatment or prevention of benign prostatic hyperplasia." Kristal et al (5)

Similar results were reported in Ref. 6.

"Factors that potentially increase the risk of benign prostatic hyperplasia and lower urinary tract symptoms include obesity and diabetes. Factors that potentially decrease the risk include increased physical activity and moderate alcohol consumption. Other candidate factors for which clear risk patterns have not yet emerged are dyslipidemia, hypertension, smoking, diet and environment." Parsons (6)

Hypertension could be a risk factor because hypertension does bad things to the body. I am not aware of anything good coming from hypertension. The same is true of smoking.

Lipids

Ref. 7 implicates dyslipidemia in BPH. This means an abnormal lipid profile in the blood. If the lipids are too high, this is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

Conclusions

There are probably factors that are not yet known. There are many theories. It seems that obesity is a risk factor for benign prostate hyperplasia as well as a risk factor for diabetes, hypertension, cancer, etc. I have already posted articles on the vegan diet, which can cause weight loss.

Orthomolecular nutrition can help with weight loss. They frown upon sugar and sweets. I have already posted many articles on orthomolecular nutrition. These articles are on Gather and on Associated Content. The shorter articles are on Gather.

References

1. Girman CJ. Natural history and epidemiology of benign prostatic hyperplasia: relationship among urologic measures. Urology. 1998;51:8-12.

2. Bosch JL, Hop WC, Kirkels WJ, Schroder FH. Natural history of benign prostatic hyperplasia: appropriate case definition and estimation of its prevalence in the community. Urology. 1995;46:34-40.
3. Foster CS. Pathology of benign prostatic hyperplasia. Prostate. 2000;9:4-14.
4. Kristal AR, King IB, Albanes D, et al. Centralized blood processing for the selenium and vitamin E cancer prevention trial: effects of delayed processing on carotenoids, tocopherols, insulin-like growth factor-I, insulin-like growth factor binding protein 3, steroid hormones, and lymphocyte viability. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. 2005 Mar;14(3):727-730.
5. Kristal AR, Arnold KB, Schenk JM, et al. Race/ethnicity, obesity, health related behaviors and the risk of symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia: results from the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial. Journal of Urology. 2007;177:1395-1400.
6. J Urol. 2007 Aug;178(2):395-401. Epub 2007 Jun 11. Modifiable risk factors for benign prostatic hyperplasia and lower urinary tract symptoms: new approaches to old problems. Parsons JK.

7. Nandeesha H, Koner BC, Dorairajan LN, Sen SK. Hyperinsulinemia and dyslipidemia in non-diabetic benign prostatic hyperplasia. Clinica Chimica Acta. 2006;370(1-2):89-93.