Prostate Natural Health Tips Any Man Can Do

Natural Prostate Health Tips:

You may think that it’s kind of weird for a female naturopath to be discussing prostate issues, but I had a partner die of colon cancer and the cancer spread to his prostate. I miss him.

He had no clue that there were actually alternative treatments that he could do for his cancer. He knew something was wrong, but when he went to his doctor, they couldn’t find anything. He happened to be a veterinarian who worked in a teaching hospital, so he went to the horse barn, pulled out the ultrasound machine and did an ultrasound on the place on his body that hurt. He saw what he thought was a lump, so he took a videotape of the procedure, took it to his doctor who looked at the tape and said, “Gosh! I think you are right!” So, he was scheduled for surgery, but when they opened him up, the cancer had advanced too far. They closed him up without doing anything and sent him home to die. Which he did.

I made up my mind that if I could help anyone develop lifestyle changes that helped them overcome or prevent cancer of any kind that I would do just that—and there are some basic things that every person can do to prevent and overcome cancer. It just so happens that there are some specific things men can do for their prostate health so I’m sharing them.

Prostate Disease Statistics:

Prostate disorders usually begin after age 35
By age 50, over 25% of all men have an enlarged prostate
By age 70, that increased to over 50% and by age 80 it’s 80%

Signs of prostate dysfunction include many bladder outlet obstruction symptoms such as:

• Getting up to pee more than normal for the amount of fluids you ingest
• Can’t empty your bladder all the way or sensations of incomplete emptying
• Increased frequency of urination
• Smaller stream of urine—takes a long time to empty bladder
• Foam in the urine- sign of protein in the urine (a sign of kidney disease)
• Hesitancy with intermittency and decreased flow of urine
• Terminal dribbling or urinary incontinence
• Pain during intercourse, burning sensations when urinating, tugging sensation around the base of the penis, low back pain, blood in the urine or an orange staining in the underwear may have a different cause than Benign Prostate Hyperplasia (BPH)

Products that can keep the prostate healthy and decrease the PSA scores:

Saw Palmetto is the herb of choice for Benign Prostate Hyperplasia (BPH) because it tones the prostate, affects the hormones in a positive way and is also a urinary remedy. Tonic value: Strengthens and builds body tissues and encourages muscle mass. Anabolic. Hormonal: Estrogenic actions good for impotence, reduced or absent sex drive, testicular atrophy, premature ejaculation (in women it has been used for breast enlargement) Urinary remedy: Saw Palmetto is nicknamed the “plant catheter” because it strengthens the neck of the bladder and helps reduce enlarged prostate glands. It is used as a diuretic to improve urine flow (raw parsley is excellent for this as well) and it acts as a urinary antiseptic in cystitis. Take up to 3 capsules daily.

Raw Hulled Pumpkin seeds (Food of choice for BPH) Dose: 4 teaspoons/day raw and hulled. Sources: Huckleberries, Local Co-ops, Winco (about $1.75/pound) and Health Food Stores

Foods are the strongest medicines we use but, “If a little is good a lot ain’t necessarily better.”Eating a BUNCH of them can give you diarrhea. All you need is a couple tablespoons/day maximum.

How to use pumpkin seeds:

• Put them in a bowl next to the stove and eat a small handful once a day
• Put them in sandwiches if you like crunch
• Put them in omelets and salads
• Put them in stir fry or on top of steamed vegetables
• Add them to cookie recipes

Raw Fruits: 1 ½ to 2 cups/day

Raw Vegetables: 1 ½ to 2 cups/day. If you can’t chew them, juice them!

Power Foods For Prostate Health Include:

• Wheat Germ oil-- (high in zinc and opens up the seminal vesicles- great for infertility) Dose: 1/3 tea/day or 3 capsules/day.
• Oatmeal (Aveno sativa)-- Great zinc source and fiber even for blood type O. Dose: about ½ cup cooked oatmeal per day or 3 ½ cups/week.
• Parsley-- awesome source of minerals and highly recommended for most health problems. Dose: 2 tablespoons/day chopped.
• Zucchini-- I think there’s a reason why God made an excess of zucchini. Dose: 5 cups cooked or raw per week.
• Yellow dock tea-- Dose: 1 cup/day max. Do not use if you have sensitive teeth or gouty arthritis.
• Watermelon is a great diuretic and good for the kidneys as well as the prostate. Dose: 3 cups/day in season.
• Unsweetened Cranberry Concentrate: For urinary tract infections you will want to add unsweetened cranberry concentrate to your diet for a couple of weeks. That is NOT cranberry juice off the shelf with all the sugar in it. You can get this product at the Co-op or at Huckleberries. It comes in an 8oz. bottle and costs about $8. Dose: Take 2 Tablespoons/day. Chase it with water and it will taste sweeter. Cranberry causes a tightening of the bladder sphincter muscles and causes the inside of the bladder to be slicker so bacteria cannot stick to it. Good brands are Knudson’s or Tree of Life.

Techniques to Help the Prostate:

Inguinal massage technique—Move that lymph for about 3 minutes/day. Lying down on the bed, face up, massage from where your legs attach to your body up towards the heart. Pay special attention to the lower abdomen just above the base of the penis. Be gentle. It should not hurt, but you should feel pressure.

Total Body Massage—Once a week is best, but every other week is the very least you should shoot for.

Reflexology points—Achilles tendon and heel area. Massage each leg about 5 minutes/day.

Exercise: Dead Lifts to increase circulation in the pelvis area. Start light. Breathe in as you lift the weights. Breathe out as you set them down. Bend at the knees. Squeeze your buttocks, throw your shoulders back and stick your chest out. Do about 2 sets of 10/day and work up from there. Don't overdo it. Repetitions are much better for your body than the amount of weight you lift.

The Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test. What is it? How often? How is it scored?

The PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) is a protein produced only by the prostate gland. The current recommendation is to get a PSA test done once a year beginning at age 50. Other doctors recommend less frequent testing. I am a proponent of getting that base level test done so that if there is a problem in the future, there is something to compare to. Some men have a predisposition to prostate cancer or have had cancer. For this group of people the PSA test is recommended more frequently.

PSA Tests Can Be Elevated For Several Reasons Including:

• Cancer
• Benign Prostate Enlargement (BPE)
• Inflammation
• Infection
• Age or Race (Blacks have higher PSA. Indians have the lowest amount of PSA)

PSA Scoring:

• 0-4 nanograms/milliliter is normal
• 4-10 ng/ml is slightly elevated
• 10-20 ng/ml is moderately elevated
• >20 is considered elevated

There are two types of PSA—Free and Attached.

The Free fraction is elevated with Benign Prostate Enlargement and the Attached fraction elevates with tumor involvement. Since there are both false positive and false negative tests, scientists are still studying various aspects of the Prostate Specific Antigen.

The "finger test" may pick up enlarged prostate, but increased PSA may not accompany enlarged prostate.

OK, men. . .Now get out there and take care of yourselves because we love you and want you around for awhile.

Dr. Denice Moffat is a practicing naturopath, medical intuitive, and veterinarian working on the family unit (which includes humans and animals) through her phone consultation practice established in 1995. She has a content-rich website at

Prostate problems
Techniques for prostate massaging

Diet Influences on Cancer Risk

Diet is a double edged sword. Improper diet increases the risk of cancer but a proper, well balanced diet reduces the cancer risk.

Diet is one of the most important lifestyle factors and has been estimated to account for up to 80% of cancers of the large bowel, breast, and prostate. Diet affects the risk of many other cancers, including cancers of the lung, prostate, stomach, esophagus and pancreas.

Prostate Cancer:

High consumption of meat, especially red meat, substantially increases the risk of prostate cancer.

Vegetables, especially cooked tomatoes, reduce the risk of prostate cancer. In one clinical trial, the role of Vitamin E as a prostate cancer reducing factor was established. In this study there was a 32% decrease in prostate cancer incidence and 41% decrease in prostate cancer mortality in people receiving Vitamin E supplements when compared to controls.

Breast Cancer:

In Japan, people consume Tofu, a soya product. It contains isoflavones that moderate the estrogen receptors in the body such as breast tissue. The incidence of breast cancer is low in Japan when compared to Western women; only 1/4th of the mortality rate of Western women. Japanese women's low fat diet, high fish consumption and drinking green tea also decrease their breast cancer risk.

One case control study found that regular consumption of soy foods was associated with a marked decrease in breast cancer risk in premenopausal women. No effect in post-menopausal women.

A Japanese case-control study also found that tofu intake (3 times/wk compared with less than 3 times/wk) was associated with decreased risk of breast cancer in premenopausal women. Again, soy intake was not protective against post-menopausal breast cancer.

In one study conducted in America, the relation between soy intake and breast cancer risk found that tofu consumption was protective in both premenopausal and post menopausal Asian women.

Lung Cancer:

Lung cancer risk is substantially decreased by a variety of carotenoids. Carotenoids act as antioxidants and thus minimize cell damage.

One study in Boston focused on the effect of different types of carotenoids on lung cancer risk. It was observed that lung cancer risk was significantly lower in subjects who consumed a diet high in a variety of carotenoids. This was especially true with non-smokers who had 63% less risk.

One study conducted in Hawaii reported further evidence for a protective effect from certain carotenoids against lung cancer and that greater protection was afforded by consuming a variety of vegetables compared to only foods rich in a particular carotenoid.

Stomach Cancer:

Nitrates in food and other preservatives added to food including meat are converted into 'nitrites' in the human stomach. The nitrites undergo nitrosation to form 'nitrosamines' and 'nitrosamides'. This increases the risk of stomach cancer in people eating vegetables from nitrate rich soil.

In one study, Vitamin C appeared to protect against the risk of stomach cancer by inhibiting formation of nitrates in stomach.

Cancer of the stomach is 5 times more common in Japanese people compared to Western populations. When Japanese people migrated to the United States, they progressively acquired the low incidence of the US due to changes in their diets.

In one study conducted in Hawaii that involved both Japanese and Caucasians, the stomach cancer risk was associated with consumption of rice, pickled vegetables, and dried/salted fish, and a negative association with vitamin C intake.

One ecological study in Belgium showed a relation between the nitrate and salt consumption and stomach cancer. The analysis of this model showed that the significance of nitrate as a risk factor for stomach cancer mortality increased markedly with higher sodium levels.

Dietary habits and stomach cancer risk was studied in Shanghai, China. According to this study, risks of stomach cancer were inversely associated with high consumption of several food groups, including fresh vegetables and fruits, poultry, eggs, plant oil, and some nutrients such as protein, fat, fiber, tea and antioxidant vitamins.

By contrast, risks increased with increasing consumption of dietary carbohydrates, frequent consumption of preserved, salty or fried foods and hot soup/porridge, with irregular meals, speed eating and binge eating. This provides evidence that diet plays a major role in stomach cancer risk.

No single food can completely prevent cancer but a balanced combination of different groups can help. Appropriate diet can prevent 3-4 million cancers each year.

Natural Cures For Prostate Cancer

Natural cures for treating prostate cancer often consist of a number of treatments, including herbal remedies, natural vitamins, minerals or dietary supplements. Other treatments include massage, acupuncture, homeopathy and magnetic therapy.

Most natural treatments are used in conjunction with a medical treatment plan, they are not intended as a complete cure for prostate cancer. The effectiveness of natural remedies is under debate, many patients claim that these treatments have been beneficial for them, while many medical practitioners claim that they are not much use and cause patients to have false hope. They also claim that natural remedies can interfere with regular treatments in prostate cancer patients.

Homeopathy is a well-known natural therapy that works on the principal that substances that can make normally well people ill can have the opposite effect on patients who are already ill if the doses of the substance are very small.

There have also been studies conducted for the usefulness of magnetic therapy to help with the cure of prostate cancer. It is believed that the north pole of the magnets can aid in slowing down the growth of a tumor. Patients treat themselves with magnetic therapy by sitting on a pad that contains magnets.

Acupuncture and massage are often recommended for prostate cancer sufferers as a complimentary treatment. Proper massage will make the patient feel more relaxed and able to cope better with stress. Massage and acupuncture are widely known as complimentary treatments rather than alternative cures for sufferers. Doctors often suggest that a patient use these treatments to help them cope with their condition.

Natural cures for prostate cancer are still being debated between doctors and natural therapy professionals, in regard to their effectiveness and ability to cure prostate cancer. If a patient is interested in learning more about natural therapies or remedies, a good place to start is to consult the doctor who is treating them and discuss the treatment, including the advantages or disadvantages of using these treatments in conjunction with the normal treatment programs.

It is important that patients make sure to tell their doctor about any natural remedies or therapies that they are thinking of using before starting them. Even herbal remedies can have a reaction to some treatments that are already being used to treat prostate cancer.