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After a prostate diagnosis, weigh options carefully. The solution may be too harsh to fit the punishment ...

According to doctors, nearly all autopsied men at age 80 or older have some form of prostate cancer. It may be shocking but true that most men will develop prostate cancer if they live long enough. The issue here is really heredity.

There are a few forms of prostate cancer that are virulent, the forms that can kill men quickly, but most forms can be tolerated by the body and their cancer cells are sloughed off with time.

Ever since a medical specialist who wrote under the name T. Browne first used the English word "prostate" in 1646, most people have had an idea of what it is and what it does. Like much of what we know about our bodies, information about the prostate has been clouded; but most everyone understands the rudimentary functioning of the prostate. Put succinctly, it's reproduction.

Weigh Options Carefully
Prostate exams, those memorable moments between doctor and patient, are much more important if you have a family history of deadly prostate cancer. The problem with having them (and the prostate-specific antigen or PSA test) is that most of us panic when we hear the "c" word and want doctors to do whatever doctors can do to save us. Unless you have the killer version of prostate cancer, however, the solution may be worse than the problem. Many men undergo the transurethral resection or some other procedure during middle age and end up living out their lives with incontinence and erectile dysfunction even though the cancer that was being treated would have caused them no real problems during their life.

Even the National Cancer Institute expresses concerns over the use of the PSA test, stating on their Web site that it can be unreliable for at least three reasons:

1. It doesn't necessarily save lives because, although it can detect small tumors, the small tumors that are less aggressive won't hurt the patient anyway.
2. The more aggressive tumors are probably terminal by the time they are detected.
3. The test results in many false positive as well as false negative results.

The Good News
It is widely understood that having regular sex helps keeps the prostate healthy. In the late '90s, Queens University in Belfast tracked the sex lives and mortality of about 1,000 middle-aged men over the course of a decade and published the results in the "British Medical Journal." Amongst a host of good outcomes that include a reduced risk of heat attack, weight loss and overall fitness, pain relief and relief of depression (this goes without saying), the prostate was one of the biggest winners. Many urologists believe there is a relationship between infrequency of sex and cancer of the prostate. The assertion is that men in their 20s can reduce, by one-third, their chances of getting prostate cancer by having sex at least five times a week.

On the cancer front, a study recently released on the efficacy of a diet rich in flaxseed proved beneficial in reducing tumor growth. Researchers studied 161 men with prostate cancer scheduled to have their tumors surgically removed. As measured by how fast their cancer cells were dividing, tumors grew about 30 to 40 percent slower in the men taking flaxseed, whether or not they followed a low-fat diet.

Many problems related to the prostate — but not prostate cancer — can be mitigated with the use of saw palmetto, an herb derived from the berries of the fan palm. The "Journal of the American Medical Association" has presented evidence that saw palmetto can lessen symptoms of prostate swelling. In some European countries, it is the preferred treatment. In Italy about half the cases involving prostate problems are treated with the herb while in Germany it is closer to 80 percent. Saw palmetto works slowly. Most men begin to see an improvement in their urinary symptoms within one to three months. It appears safe to take saw palmetto indefinitely, but possible effects from long-term use are unknown. One drawback with the herb, and other such herbal products, is that it may suppress PSA levels, so it's important to tell your doctor before having a PSA test.

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