TotalHealth Magazine

An international group of researchers did all males—and their doctors—a great service by showing that the combination of erectile dysfunction (ED) and arterial disease (CVD) is potentially lethal. In short, the presence of both puts you at higher risk for death from all causes and also increases the chance of cardiovascular death, heart attack, stroke and heart failure hospitalization.

We can truly alter our aging process by the way we live. Whether we can ultimately alter our longevity is not as important, in my own and most patient’s opinions, as enhancing our health and vitality as we age. It’s the quality and vitality of life that matters, not merely the quantity.

In this article, I discuss the aging process in general for men and then focus on maintaining prostate health and sexual function over our years. And clearly for men, their prostate and sexual function is important to feeling youthful. Those that remain sexually and sensually active feel better in many other ways as well.

What is the Prostate and What Does It Do?

The prostate is a golf ball-sized gland located between the bladder, rectum, and penis in the male genitourinary system. It surrounds the urethra, which is the passageway for urine from the bladder and sperm from the testis. The prostate produces and secretes a milky alkaline fluid that makes up about 25 percent of the volume of sperm. Prostatic fluid provides energy for sperm on the journey to the female egg, contains enzymes required to break through proteins, and contains a natural antibiotic to help prevent infections.

More than fifty years ago, a special extract made from rye and other pollens was first discovered to provide dramatic relief not only from the symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), but also from the symptoms of prostatitis and prostatodynia, two other common prostate conditions. The story of the discovery of these health benefits of pollen extract is wonderfully recounted in the book, The Prostate Cure, written by Harry G. Preuss, MD, and Brenda Adderly, MHA. However, the story of pollen extract does not end with its benefits in these conditions or even with its benefits in the area of prostate health. Recent research has shown that pollen extract inhibits the growth of some forms of cancer, that it activates important protective liver enzymes, and that it protects against damage to the heart and may improve athletic performance.

Hair loss or thinning is a common and important issue, especially in those who have chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia. If you’re experiencing hair loss in a generally thinning way (diffuse), then treating: nutritional deficiencies and an underactive thyroid are especially important.

Low iron is a key nutrient for hair growth, and standard testing misses most cases of iron deficiency. In fact, despite the fact that most physicians consider a ferritin blood test (the best measure of iron deficiency or excess) over 12 to show adequate iron, a recent study in patients with chronic illness and even mild anemia (a description fitting most people with CFS) showed that a ferritin under 100 was diagnostic of iron deficiency!

Editor’s note: The following information is excerpted from the totalhealth article, which ran in May 2001, Deciding to Pursue an Alternative Cancer Therapy by Dr. Linda Isaacs, Dr. Gonzalez’s partner. It serves as an excellent introduction to this first of two articles on condition specific nutrition as a primary therapy for pancreatic and other cancers.

Pelvic pain is common in the public in general, but especially common in those with CFS and fibromyalgia. Unfortunately, many patients are embarrassed to bring these up at their doctor visits and even when they do, physicians are often unfamiliar with these problems.

In this article, we’ll focus on prostatitis and prostadynia.

Prostatitis and Prostadynia
Even in the absence of a full blown attack of prostatitis, which is usually not subtle and is easily diagnosed and treated, prostate pain is fairly common in men. When no infection is found, it is called prostadynia. It is also known as chronic nonbacterial prostatitis, or chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CPPS).

Clinical experience, as well as research in nerve pain conditions such as pancreatic cancer, has shown that magnesium can be an effective treatment for pain. Although it is clear why magnesium can decrease muscle pain (it makes muscles relax), why it would help nerve pain was less clear. A new study on rats printed in The Journal of Physiology confirms our clinical experience that magnesium decreases nerve pain—while also pointing to how it works.

Statins are one of the most prescribed classes of drugs on the planet, and are given primarily to lower cholesterol. The most famous of the statins are Lipitor and Zocor, but there are plenty of others. Technically known as HMG-coenzymne A-reductase inhibitors—they slow down the process by which your body makes cholesterol, thus lowering the total amount in the bloodstream.

You don’t need to believe that “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” in order to accept that men and women have different nutritional needs. Men lead in eight of the top ten causes of death in the United States. As is often observed, because men are more reluctant than women to seek medical care, when they do so, their illnesses typically have advanced to a more serious degree. It would seem that men, even more than women, would do well to adopt defensive measures to preserve their health. Women are not only the fairer sex, but when it comes to health, they are in general, also savvier. However, men should not depend on the supplements used by their wives or women friends. Some preventative measures are strictly gender-specific. For example, whereas calcium and iron are good for women, these minerals may not be good supplement choices for men.

The prerequisites for developing benign prostate hypertrophy (BPH) are the presence of testes and age. It is one of the most frequently occurring diseases in men over 60 years of age. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), BPH affects more than 50 percent of men over the age of 60 and as many as 90 percent of men over the age of 70. This translates to a staggering 4.5 million visits to a physician for BPH in the United States in 2000.¹

Apple pectin and polyphenol-rich apple juice have an anti-carcinogenic effect on the colon, encouraging the production of suspected chemo-preventative metabolite butyrate, say researchers. Butyrate is a short chain fatty acid (SCFA) that has been found to be a major factor contributing to healthy colon mucosa.

The study, published in the April issue of Nutrition, looked at human fecal matter fermented with apple constituents and found a significantly increased yield of SCFA, most notably butyrate.