Research exists that suggests diet and exercise play a distinct role in preventing prostate issues. This news may come as a boon to the 50% of men over 50 out there who frequently feel the need to urinate or suffer from any other debilitating symptoms concerning benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) and more severe issues such as prostate cancer.
While age is a primary contributing factor to developing BPH, eating foods rich in certain vitamins can help reduce your risk of developing prostate issues. Another secondary way your diet can help you avoid numerous trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night is losing weight. Because being overweight is a risk factor for BPH, eating healthy and exercising helps keep you pain-free and avoid the invasive, troublesome symptoms that BPH causes.
This blog discusses the various vitamins and foods that help keep your prostate healthy, no matter what age you are. It also outlines where you can find the vitamins if you have some difficulty incorporating them into your diet. If this is the case, using supplements such as Prostate 911 can help you obtain the necessary vitamins and nutrients your prostate needs to be healthy.
Sesame Seeds
Many studies show that zinc is a critical component of prostate health. In a study published in the Indian Journal of Urology, men with BPH or prostate cancer had substantially lower zinc levels in their body than men with healthy prostates.
If you can’t get zinc from foods, you can get it from supplements. However, getting your zinc from food is preferable compared to getting your zinc from supplements because the body absorbs it easier. Other foods such as beans, almonds, and pumpkin seeds are also high in zinc.
Fish With High Levels of Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Fish such as salmon, sardine, Atlantic mackerel, cod, herring, lake trout, and tuna have high levels of Omega-3 fatty acids.
Obesity has many links to prostate health, and as Mayo Clinic shows, it is one of the contributing factors to BPH and prostate cancer. Omega 3 fatty acids help protect you from conditions such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammation, and weight gain. Protecting yourself from these conditions can reduce your risk for prostate problems.
If fish isn’t your forte, you can get omega-3 fatty acids from foods such as walnuts, ground flax seeds, chia seeds, and canola oil. You can also find small amounts of omega-3 fatty acids in kidney beans and soybeans.
Avocadoes
Avocados contain beta-sitosterol, a sterol that research shows may alleviate BPH symptoms. Some men have reported that beta-sitosterol improved their urinary flow and reduced residual urine volume. Despite these reports, however, there has not been enough research into beta-sitsterol’s efficacy to prove it accomplishes these results on a large scale.
Pumpkin seeds, wheat germ, soybeans, and pecans also contain high amounts of beta-sitosterol.
Green Tea
Eastern medicine has utilized green tea for thousands of years, but western medicine has failed to standardize and prove its uses as an effective defense against cancer. Despite the lack of definitive evidence supporting green tea as an effective cancer preventative, mounting evidence suggests the compounds found in green tea reduce the risk of prostate cancer by mitigating tumor growth, preventing cell death, and facilitating proper hormone signaling.
Ingredients such as Catechin, xanthine derivatives, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), and epicatechin may explain the beneficial effects of green tea on prostate health.
Tomatoes
Lycopene is a potent antioxidant that can help in the fight against prostate cancer. It may also slacken tumor growth for those who have prostate cancer. A published study by NCBI found that males who ate more tomatoes were less likely to develop prostate cancer.
Scientists speculate that Lycopene can decrease damages to healthy cells from malignant cells and slow cancer production. However, the body has some difficulty absorbing lycopene from raw tomatoes. The body has difficulty absorbing lycopene from raw tomatoes because it is tightly bound to the cell walls. Cooking tomatoes may help loosen the lycopene in the tomatoes for easier absorption.
Pureed tomatoes might also represent better options for lycopene absorption. The body can absorb tomato paste products, spaghetti sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, and tomato juice more efficiently than raw tomatoes.
Vegetables
Some vegetables, especially leafy greens, are rich in antioxidants. Cruciferous veggies such as broccoli reduce the risk of prostate problems such as BPH and prostate cancer. Onions and garlic may also fight infection and improve your immune system, which could have beneficial effects on prostate health.
However, regardless of whether you incorporate vegetables loaded with vitamin C, vitamin E, or allium, the effects of such vegetables on overall prostate health are unclear and require more extensive studies to determine such vegetables’ efficacy.
Legumes and Soybeans
Legumes include beans, peanuts, and lentils. They have many phytoestrogens, such as isoflavones, which have been shown to reduce prostate cancer risk. One reviewed study published in NBCI found that people who ate the most phytoestrogens had as much as a 20% reduced risk of developing prostate cancer.
Phytoestrogens may fight cancer by regulating hormones and facilitating regular cell death sequences. They are also antioxidant-rich. As with the other foods on this list, we need more conclusive research to determine the full effects legumes have on the prostate and reduced prostate cancer risk.
Eat Healthy To Avoid Prostate Problems
Most of the foods in this article need further examination as to their effects on the prostate. However, ample research exists documenting the benefits of ingredients such as omega-3 fatty acids on overall health.
If nothing else, this guide provides you with a few foods to incorporate into your diet for a healthier lifestyle. If you can’t get the nutrients discussed in this article from your regular diet, consider using a supplement such as Phytage labs’ Prostate 911.
Since being overweight or obese is a primary risk factor for prostate cancer and BPH, maintaining a healthy lifestyle is a crucial prevention component. Use these foods in conjunction with an exercise program to keep your prostate free from potentially harmnful conditions.
