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Benign enlarged prostate
Hi B. & Daniel,Can I ask some about worrying news my brother has received.
His PSA blood test has been slowly increasing and a MRI shows his prostate is enlarged significantly, thankfully benign.
Is there anything he can do naturally to address the enlarged prostate from increasing in size or for it become malignant. Sorry, this is all new to me and my brother is extremely worried.
I don’t know how to advise him. He’s under the care of a urologist, but it’ll be tradition route. Is there anything he can address from a functional medicine perspective?
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3 Replies
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Hey ,
I’m so sorry to hear this! I can feel your worries… My heart goes out to you and your brother!
It would be helpful to know a little more about your brother’s life. For example, how is his diet? Is he consuming high-glycemic foods? What is his age? Are there other lab markers checked? Is he on any medications? Does he use supplements? How does he sleep? Anything that comes to mind might help us give more targeted advice.
Prostate enlargement can be caused by hormonal reasons. In the prostate, there is an enzyme (5 alpha reductase) that converts testosterone to a more potent form of testosterone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT for short).
When DHT levels are elevated in the prostate, this can cause more proliferation of the cells in the prostate. Zinc is a nutrient that can help reduce the conversion from testosterone to DHT. There are risk factors for zinc deficiency (just watch this video). If you like to know if there are other signs & symptoms presenting of a zinc deficiency, just watch this video!
If your brother is consuming a high glycemic diet, it would be recommended to go to a low-carb diet… preferably no sugar at all. Checking his fasting insulin is something I would recommend as well if he likes to see if there is blood sugar dysregulation at play. Studies have shown that people with higher insulin levels have more chance at rapid cell growth.
In his case, I would also check his vitamin D levels. I usually recommend my clients bring vitamin D levels up to 50 ng/ml with a vitamin D/k2 supplement.
Pomegranate can help reduce the proliferation of cells as well according to this research. I would recommend you to read this article for sure.
There are other recommendations I would like to make if your brother is open to making certain lifestyle changes.
Let me know if I can help you with that!
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just wanted to chime in to say sorry to hear that but to also ask about his age as it does become more common in elderly men for root cause reasons Daniel mentioned above, in addition to being overweight or obese.
I’ve often seen blood sugar dysregulation being the main driving factor since insulin increases the conversion of testosterone to DHT so definitely encourage him to test HbA1C, fasting glucose and fasting insulin or c-peptide.
And please encourage him to join B Better so he can access the content and we can provide him with continued support.
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Hi B. & Daniel,
Apologies for the delayed response.
Not much if a response from my part other than my brother is undergoing further tests and I’m waiting for his response to your questions.
He’s 53. Despite home cooked foods, his duet has been a high percentage of junk food since his 20s. He use to be very slim. To be honest, what triggered him to gain weight. His maximum weight was just over 90kg but now just over 80kg.
Just to add to the complexity, he’s also a lung cancer patient since 2013. He doesn’t smoke or drink.
He doesn’t take any supplements or medications apart from pain killer called co-codamol.
I have forward your response to him to address.
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