Raena Morgan: Hello, I'm Raena Morgan with iHealthTube. We're visiting with Dr. Aaron Katz. What are some of the conditions of the prostate and about what age would men experience an enlarged prostate? Dr. Aaron Katz: Well, we see men that have an enlarging prostate and this is called BPH, or Benign Prostate Hyperplasia, which is a benign growth of the prostate and this condition can start in the fourth to fifth decade of life. But some of the times, the symptoms of this condition are not really seen until the sixth and seventh decades of life. And the symptoms of a benign enlarging prostate are some of the urinary tract symptoms that we commonly see men complaining about. Such as they're getting up at night, they're having difficulty emptying their bladder, their stream is slower, they're going to the bathroom very frequently during the day and this is due to the fact that this benign enlargement of the prostate, the prostate is growing and it's pushing on the urethra, the urinary tube leading from the bladder causing higher pressures in the bladder and that's very common to see a 65 year-old man who's coming in, he's complaining about these symptoms, he's not getting enough sleep at night his wife is not getting enough sleep at night. So they're seeking advice from an urologist to determine whether or not he has prostate cancer, for one, is this just a benign enlargement, does he need medication, does he need surgery or can he just try some dietary supplements and alternative medicine to relieve some of these symptoms. Raena Morgan: So this benign condition is fairly common. Dr. Aaron Katz: It's very common in men and probably affects nearly half of the men as they enter the seventh decade of life. Raena Morgan: Okay. Dr. Aaron Katz: Now, a much less common type of problem that men face earlier on in life usually in the third or fourth decade of life is an inflammation of the prostate and this is known as a prostatitis. And prostatitis can be in two forms; as an acute prostatitis, where men have terrible pain beneath the bladder, in the prostate area, pain that's referred to the tip of the penis. This can be caused by bacteria and this needs to be treated with antibiotics, usually for 2 to 3 weeks. A urine test needs to be done to determine what type of bacteria are present in the acute prostatitis and the antibiotic usually is administered for that 2 to 3 week period and for the majority of times, this can treat and cure that condition. Raena Morgan: So the benign condition, the BPH, that's just going to be an enlargement, you're going to have some urinary pressures and problems, but the inflammation that you're going to experience pain. Dr. Aaron Katz: In the acute inflammation, yes. Sometimes men can get pain, they can develop fevers, very high fevers and if the prostate becomes inflamed very quickly and flares up, it can push on that urinary tube so much that men can't urinate at all. They wind up many times we see these men in the emergency room and they have to have a catheter put in. That's acute prostatitis. Probably a more common scenario that we see in medicine is something called chronic prostatitis, where men have this inflammation in their prostate and they do have some pain, but it's not the terrible pain where they need to be admitted to a hospital. They still can urinate, but they have vague abdominal pain, vague pain along the scrotal area, along the penis. We can feel their prostate on examination and it feels inflamed and indurated. This is a chronic condition that sometimes needs antibiotics, but sometimes, we found, that some of the dietary supplements that we'll talk about can be very helpful in this chronic inflammation. One of the concerns that we have nowadays with this condition of chronic inflammation is the potential association between inflammation and cancer. If men have a chronic inflammation, are they at higher risk of developing prostate cancer. Can we block that inflammation so that we can b