Health news and facts compiled by the Meriden Public Library January 2018

Health Beat

What Can Affect

Prostate Cancer?

P rostate cancer is common among

American men. Your chance of getting pros-tate cancer may be af-fected by your:

Age. Men age 50 and older run a greater risk.

Race. Prostate cancer is most common among African-American men, followed by Hispan-ic and Native-American men. Asian-American men have the lowest rates.

Family history. If your father or brother had prostate cancer, you are more likely to have it.

Diet. The risk of pros-tate cancer may be high-er for men who eat high-fat diets. Treatment depends on whether cancer is in part or all of the prostate, or if it has spread to other parts of the body. Talk with your doctor about the best treatment choice. You may want to ask another doctor for a sec-ond opinion.

—National Institute on Aging

T he prostate is a gland in men. It helps make semen, the fluid that con-

tains sperm. The prostate surrounds the tube that carries urine from the bladder and out of the body. A young man's pros-tate is about the size of a walnut. It slowly grows with age.

If it gets too large, it can cause problems. This is very common after age 50. The older men get, the more likely they are to have prostate trouble.

Some common problems are

Prostatitis — inflammation, usually caused by bacteria

Enlarged prostate, or be-nign prostatic hyperplasia — a common problem in older men that may cause dribbling after urination or a need to go often, especially at night

Prostate cancer — a com-mon cancer that responds best to treatment when de-tected early

Acute bacterial prostatitis usually starts suddenly from a bacterial infection. See your doctor right away if you

have fever, chills or pain in addition to prostate symp-toms. Most cases can be cured with antibiotics.

Benign prostatic hyper-plasia, is very common in older men. It means your

prostate is en-larged but not can-cerous. Treatments include:

Watchful wait-ing. If your symp-toms are not too bad, your doctor

may tell you to wait to see if they get worse before start-ing treatment.

Medications. Medicines can help shrink the prostate or relax muscles near your prostate to ease symptoms.

Surgery. If nothing else has worked, your doctor may suggest surgery to help urine flow.

Other treatments. Some-times radio waves, micro-waves or lasers are used to treat urinary problems caused by this condition. These methods use different kinds of heat to reduce extra prostate tissue.

—National Institutes of Health

Prostate Problems Common in Men Over Age 50

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U ntil recently, many doc-tors encouraged yearly

prostate-specific antigen test-ing, commonly called PSA testing, for all men beginning at age 50, or even earlier for men at high risk of prostate cancer.

As doctors have learned more about the benefits and harms of prostate cancer

screening, they have begun to caution against annual PSA testing.

Talk with your doctor about what is best for you.

Yearly PSA testing in men without symptoms is generally not recommended.

However, in men who report prostate symptoms, PSA test-ing (along with other examina-

tions) can help doctors deter-mine the nature of the prob-lem.

In men who have been treat-ed for prostate cancer, the PSA test may be used to see if the cancer has returned.

—National Institute

on Aging

Doctors No Longer Recommend Yearly PSA Testing