Prostate Health Archive

Some men have a slightly shorter penis after undergoing surgery to remove a cancerous prostate gland. A new study shows that taking an erectile dysfunction drug like Viagra or Cialis after surgery can prevent that from happening.

Thanks in part to advertising, many men with prostate cancer believe that they’ll get better results with robot-assisted prostate surgery than with more traditional open surgery. The latest study doesn’t bear that out.

Taking supplements of selenium or vitamin E, once thought to prevent prostate cancer, seems to do just the opposite. A new report shows that men who take vitamin E or selenium are at higher risk for developing prostate cancer. Bottom line: men shouldn’t take selenium or vitamin E as a way to prevent prostate cancer, or anything else for that matter.

Mass marketing of testosterone therapy may have men eager to try this seemingly simple fix. But the latest science should have them scratching their heads and putting away the credit card—at least for now. A new study published in the online journal PLOS One shows an increase in the risk of having a heart attack in the months after starting testosterone therapy. The potential for danger was highest in older men. A report in the November 6, 2013, issue of JAMA showed that men who used testosterone therapy didn’t fare as well after artery-opening angioplasty as men who didn’t take testosterone. Neither was the type of study that can prove cause and effect. They can only show associations, or links. That means there’s no smoking gun here that testosterone therapy is harmful. But the studies do suggest caution. Given the uncertainly over the benefits and risks of testosterone therapy, what’s a man to do? Take a cautious approach, advises the Harvard Men’s Health Watch.

Prostatitis (infection or inflammation of the prostate gland) flies under the radar even though it affects up to one in six men at some point in their lifetimes. It triggers more than two million visits to doctors and untold agony each year.

Radical prostatectomy changes the experience of orgasm. But it doesn’t need to be any less pleasurable or satisfying, says Dr. Ravi Kacker, a urologist and fellow in male sexual medicine at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

New research has has identified an enzyme that may be the escape hatch that advanced prostate cancer uses to evade hormone therapy. If the findings hold up, the enzyme might be a prime target for a drug that would treat castration-resistant prostate cancer.

Metformin—the drug that millions of people with diabetes take to control their blood sugar—may be on the brink of a second career. Evidence from a variety of studies suggests that metformin may delay or slow the progression of prostate cancer. Metformin does not, however, appear to prevent the development of prostate cancer in the first place.

In many men diagnosed with prostate cancer, the cancer cells grow so slowly that they never break free of the gland, spread to distant sites, and pose a serious risk to health and longevity. Instead of embarking on immediate treatment, a growing number of men choose active surveillance, in which doctors monitor low-risk cancers closely and consider treatment only when the disease appears to make threatening moves toward growing and spreading. A new Harvard study shows that the aggressiveness of prostate cancer at diagnosis remains stable over time for most men. If confirmed, then prompt treatment can be reserved for the cancers most likely to pose a threat, while men with slow-growing, benign prostate cancer—which is unlikely to cause problems in a man’s lifetime—can reasonably choose active surveillance.

The omega-3 fats in fish have been linked to all sorts of health benefits, including protection against prostate cancer. But for the second time in two years, researchers have found a link between high levels of omega-3 fats in the blood and prostate cancer. Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle men with high levels of omega-3 fats were 43% more likely to have been diagnosed with prostate cancer than men with low levels. The finding were published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.