What causes benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH)?
Question: What causes benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH)?
Answer: That is only partly understood. One known factor is aging and the other is presence of the male sex hormone testosterone. The presence of functioning testes are a prerequisite for prostate enlargement. This has been known for decades because of reports from countries where, for religious or other reasons, castration is performed on men at a young age – these men never develop BPH. There might be dietary factors, but this has been looked at globally, and no clear factors that provoke BPH have been found as yet. It’s very difficult to ascertain the global rates of benign prostatic hyperplasia. No countries have an especially low incidence, but there are many potentially confounding factors. Many Third World countries do not have registries of various diseases, so of course they’d under-report — and if people don’t have good access to health care, then the disease is never diagnosed or registered.
There are factors that have been investigated and found not to predispose to BPH: smoking, alcohol consumption and even sex.