Get Notified when there's something new from Health in FocusThe Prostate Gland
By Jacobus Hollewijn
Your Daily Health Pearl Minute # 36
Half of all men by age 60, and close to 90% of those over 85 suffer from Benign Prostate Enlargement of BPH. This condition is non-cancerous; however, it could eventually turn into cancer.
Currently an estimated 40 million men in the U.S. have this condition.
The prostate gland is located beneath the bladder and surrounds the urethra. Its job is to secrete about 30% of what is called “seminal fluid.” This, in turn, mixes with sperm to form semen.
Our prostate gland is about the size of a walnut in our early 20’s, naturally growing to about a golfball size, which isn’t too much bigger actually. But, at around 60 years old, the prostate may even grow to the size of a lemon.
However, when talking about clinical prostate enlargement or swelling: based on how little space there is for it to grow, the inside of the prostate now swells shut and starts to put immediately pressure on the urethra – acting a bit like a clamp.
Symptoms of Benign Prostate Enlargement include:
- More frequent urination with less force and volume;
- Incontinence,
- The feeling that you cannot completely empty your bladder;
- Sexual disfunction,
- And those inconvenient wake-up calls in the middle of the night.
When I wrote this Health Pearl back in early 1997, the annual cost (in the United States) for the treatment of BPH was a little over ONE Billion Dollars. In 2024 that number has ballooned (no pun-intended) to about FOUR Billion dollars.
This is unacceptable in my opinion!
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