Prostatitis and You-T!

November 9th, 2009

Prostatitis

Prostatitis is loosely the male equivalent of a UTI in women as far as frequency goes. Prostatitis is an inflammation of the prostate gland, in men. A prostatitis diagnosis is assigned at 8% of all urologist and 1% of all primary care physician visits in the United States.[1]

According to uptodate: In one five-year survey of 58,955 ambulatory visits to physicians by men over the age of 18 years, genitourinary tract symptoms accounted for five percent of all complaints [2]. Prostatitis was listed as a diagnosis in nearly two million encounters annually in the United States National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys.

The symptoms are very similar to a UTI.  The typical story goes like this:

45 year-old otherwise healthy male experiencing urinary frequency in the past 2 days.  His urine burns each time he goes to urinate.  He also has lower back pain with a fevers and chills.

The big bad E.Coli is the cause of bacterial prostatitis 80-90% of the time.  Treatment is with antibiotics for 2 weeks.

In theory, You-T!, and anything else with proanthocyanidins should reduce the incidence of prostatitis because it interferes with the adherence of e.coli.  I need to do more research on prostatitis and proanthocyanidins.  More to come.

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