Richard Torrens Medical experience
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I suffer from an enlarged prostate gland - technical term Benign prostatic hyperplasia (Link is to a Wikipedia article). It's a symptom of age - I'm 67!

A visit to the doctor resulted in a blood test. No, I didn't have any sign of carcinoma, but I did have poor LDL/HDL cholesterol balance and signs of reduced kidney function. Not a word of sensible advice about the prostate trouble other than "stick it as long as you can, then we'll do something.".

The doctor suggested I go in Statins - but I don't like medication so resisted and easily changed my diet to correct the LDL/HDL balance.

I had noticed that the urine flow rate was variable: I could not relate this variability to anything physical, so I wondered whether it was diet related and started searching the www.

Now although there is a lot of useful fact on the internet there is also much fiction: it is easy to find, on the www, information to justify any myth you happen to believe. But after much sifting, it seems that there is good evidence that Β-Sitosterol has useful effects on hyperplasia.

Β-Sitosterol (Beta-sitosterol) (Link is to a Wikipedia article) is a plant sterol (phytosterol) similar to Cholesterol, which is found in many plants. It's said to be particularly abundant in pumpkin seeds and peanuts - both of which are good snack foods and are readily available at reasonable price.

So I started eating pumpkin seeds and peanuts (not an arduous medication, both can be rather moreish!) and found the urine flow improved. It deteriorated again a few days after I stopped eating them. I can't say which is more effective, as I was snacking both (we were on holiday).
Friday the 4th of September, 2009. On holiday I had finished the peanuts, had pumpkin seeds only... They apparently do not work for me! Now to try peanuts on their own.

So now I'm investigating how much of these I need per day and what other foods may be good. Cashew nuts are said to be good, but first, I'm eating coconut flesh to see if that works. If it does it will be excellent news as coconut oil is almost certainly the most healthy of all oils and fats.

Foods I (and others) have tried include

• Peanuts
- most useful
Addendum Monday the 14th of June, 2010. For a while I was not sure how effective peanuts were - the condition varies considerable and to link variations with any one factor is exceedingly difficult. However after nearly a year, yes, if I haven't eaten peanuts for a couple of days - the condition does get worse. Interestingly, peanuts appear not to be fattening! See a page of references for more information - truly a wonder food!
3rd of October, 2018 Having ben regularly eating about 50gr of peanuts daily, my prostate has bot deteriorated. If anything, symptoms have reduced.
• Pumpkin seeds
- not so useful < LI class="big">Coconut - no apparent effect but read up on coconut oil. If you can sort the myth from the fact, it has some very useful properties.
• Walnuts
. A known health food, but seem to have no effect when I tried them. However there is a paper published in the Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research which found that Walnut extract had a distinct anti cancer effect of prostatic cancer cells. The test was in vitro so is only a good indicator.
• Cashew nuts
(Added Monday the 14th of June, 2010) In an an email from Drew Papanek he says he finds cashew nuts to be significantly useful. He also says it's helpful to drink a lot. I drink tea by the pint anyway! He refers to Dr. F. Batmanghelidj water cure page

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