23 April 2008 226 views No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

By Dr. Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS

Does waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom sound familiar? If you’re a man and you’re over 40, chances are you’ve experienced the all too common symptoms of an enlarged prostate also called BPH. Frequent urination, especially in the middle of the night, is the signature of this annoying but essentially harmless condition. So is a hesitant, interrupted or weak stream of urine, a pressing urgency to urinate, leaking, or dribbling.

A healthy prostate gland is about the size of a walnut, and sits right under the bladder. Its main purpose is to store and secrete fluid that makes up about one third of the volume of seminal fluid. For various reasons, the prostate will enlarge as we age, causing the urinary tube known as the urethra to constrict making urination difficult.

Annoying as it is, BPH is not usually dangerous. However, you need to be aware of two things. One, urine retention and strain on the bladder can lead to more serious problems including bladder and kidney damage, bladder stones, urinary tract infection, and the inability to control urination. If you catch BPH early, there’s a much lower risk of such complications. And fortunately, there are some easy and natural ways to bring relief (more on that in a moment).

Saw palmetto is the “go-to” herb when it comes to taming the urge to pee every few hours. A three-year study in Germany found that 160 mg of saw palmetto extract taken twice daily reduced night-time urination in 73% of people and significantly improved urinary flow rates. Another multi-center study showed that a similar amount of saw palmetto treated BPH as well as the drug Proscar, but without the side effects.

Though we don’t know the exact cause of BPH, it is widely believed that it’s fueled by hormones, specifically testosterone, and even more specifically the metabolism of testosterone—in other words, what happens in the body to the testosterone that we do make. Some testosterone is converted in the body to a nasty little metabolite called DHT. DHT is thought to be partly responsible for male baldness.

In women, a high level of testosterone conversion to DHT is thought to be connected to a host of “male” symptoms like hair loss (on the head) and hair growth (on the face). This conversion—in both men and women—is fueled by a potent enzyme. Saw palmetto helps to inhibit this enzyme and thus reduce the amount of harmful DHT.

As a further benefit to prostate health, saw palmetto contains plant sterols that reduce damaging inflammation.

Although saw palmetto is the superstar nutrient for “curing” night-time bathroom breaks, other supplements have also been found to be helpful. Pygeum is an extract from the bark of an African tree and is approved in at least three countries in Europe as a BPH remedy. It relieves symptoms of BPH and contains at least three types of compounds that help the prostate in different and important ways.

Natural Prescription for an Enlarged Prostate

Saw Palmetto: 320 mg (160 mg 2x a day)
Can be combined with (approximate values):
Pygeum: 100-200 mg (50-100 mg 2x a day)
Stinging Nettles: 300 mg (150 mg 2x a day)
Beta-sitosterol: 100-300 mg (150 mg 2x a day)
Zinc: 50 mg to start, reduce to 30 mg after a few months

Note: All dosages are daily dosages and in pill or capsule form unless otherwise noted.

Beta-sitosterol is a plant sterol found in almost all plants, but especially in rice bran, wheat germ, corn oils, and soybeans. In clinical research it’s been shown to help lower blood cholesterol, but more to the point, it’s also been shown to reduce the symptoms of BPH. Four double-blind, placebo-controlled studies that included 519 men and lasted from 4 to 26 weeks concluded that beta-sitosterol significantly improved symptoms of BPH including urine flow.

Nettles (stinging nettles) are frequently combined with other “prostate herbs” like saw palmetto, and have long been believed to have a beneficial effect on prostate health. One recent double-blind, placebo-controlled study found that nettles had beneficial effects on the prostate, and other studies have also been encouraging.

Pumpkin seeds have a well-deserved reputation as a prostate-friendly food and are an approved “therapy” for men with BPH in Germany. In a few studies, pumpkin seed oil has been shown to have a good effect on BPH symptoms, but no good research shows that the seeds work by themselves. So it would be better to use pumpkin extract in combination with saw palmetto in supplements for prostate health.

Although the research on zinc for BPH is spotty, most complementary and holistic health practitioners recommend it. Zinc is absolutely essential to prostate health. Prostatic secretions contain a high concentration of zinc. Zinc also tones down the activity of the enzyme that fuels the conversion of testosterone to harmful DTH. (Remember that stress depletes zinc like crazy, so many individuals may be low to begin with.)

Research has shown that the best absorbed forms of zinc are zinc picolinate and zinc citrate.

And let’s not forget sex. Sexual activity is one proven way to keep the prostate healthy. Men who ejaculate frequently are less likely to have inflammation of the prostate known as prostatitis. An Australian study concluded that the more men ejaculate between the ages of 20 and 50, the less likely they are to develop prostate cancer later in life.(5) One widely held theory is that regular ejaculation “flushes out” cancer-causing agents and fluid which might otherwise accumulate.

Just something to keep in mind!

Note: It’s always good to rule out cancer as a cause of urinary symptoms. A blood test called a PSA can help. Though the test is hardly conclusive for cancer, PSA is frequently elevated in the blood of men with prostate cancer.