Jul
16
OVER THE COUNTER DRUGS FOR PROSTATITIS
July 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment
OVER THE COUNTER
Just what does the March, 1990 publicity release by the FDA mean? Will there still be over the counter preparations designed to help with BPH problems by the end of the year, or into 1991? Only the FDA knows.
A check of health food and nutrition specialty stores in mid 1990 showed at least five products on the market. Many of these tend to be regional and there well could be twenty or fifty more out there. These are shown as examples of what’s on the market now. We do not judge any of them but present them here as another element of the BPH real-life picture for the layman.
Prostate Plus
This product came to our attention through a multi-page tabloid type newspaper mailed to a name and address (or current occupant). It was a national mass mailing and held a 3/4 page story and advertisement for Prostate Plus.
Prostate Plus was described as a “Total nutritional support for a healthy prostate.” It went on to say that it: “provides every nutrient known to benefit a healthy, well-functioning prostate gland.” Since it is advertised as a nutritional supplement and not a medical treatment, perhaps it will get around the FDA broadsword.
What’s in it? I-Glycine, I-Alanine, I-glutamic acid, zinc, raw prostate, saw palmetto, pumpkin seed concentrate, vitamin E, golden rod, and flaxseed oil.
Ninety capsules cost you $14.95 in the store.
Prostone
Prostone comes from the Enzymatic Therapy people in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Prostone No. 190 is described this way: “The nutrients in this formula including zinc, Vitamin A, essential fatty acids and amino acids, are vital for proper prostate function.”
What’s in it? Oil concentrate from wheat germ and safflower seeds, linoleic acid from safflower seed oil, intrinsic glandular lipids, lecithin, L-Glutamic acid, L-A Ian i fie, Amenoacetic acid, Prostate tissue, Vitamin B6, Vitamin A from fish liver oil, Zinc chelate, bee pollen and saw palmetto berries extract.
Sixty capsules will cost you $11.95.
Raw Prostate With Gaba
This product is made up exclusively of raw bovine prostate and gamma amino butyric acid. That’s about all we know about it except that it comes from Country Life, a large maker of health food additives and products. It’s on the market. Glad they told us it was bovine prostate. Ninety tablets will cost you $13.00
Prostatrophic Concentrate
This one is made up entirely from raw bovine prostate. One such ingredient indicated it had been freeze dried. Here 100 tablets are priced at $8.00.
Search
This small bottle of sixty tablets was priced at $10 and the ingredients were listed as raw bovine prostate.
So, we’ve talked about the non-surgical, minor surgery and drug type of treatments for BPH. Where do we go from here? If none of the other methods are right for you, your urologist may suggest traditional surgery for your BPH. What’s that? Move right on to the next chapter and find out.
Jul
15
OVER-THE-COUNTER,
THROUGH THE MAIL REMEDIES
Up to two years ago there had been a thriving over the counter and through the mails business of selling non-prescription compounds and “cures” and treatments for BPH.
Several years ago the Post Office Department began challenging many of these products sold through the mail on grounds that they were advertised misleadingly, and that they did not do what they claimed to do. Simple misrepresentation which could ban them from the mail.
That campaign by the U.S. postal authorities put a lot of people out of business who were selling various mail order non-prescription products to treat the prostate.
In March of 1990, the Food and Drug Adminstration said it would ban the sale of all non-prescription drugs used to treat enlargement of the prostate gland. The FDA said their review of the products found little evidence that any of them eliminated, arrested or treated the condition called benign prostatic hypertrophy. There was no date given for enforcing the ban or activating it.
The FDA, evidently not keeping up with current developments in the field, said surgery was the only effective treatment for BPH. A lot of urologists and specialists in the drug field will argue long and hard with their dictum with the various minor-surgical techniques we’ve discussed so far and the new drugs being developed.
What the FDA order does is ban non-prescription products that are advertised for the treatment of the prostate. They did not, and can not ban the sale of certain chemicals or compounds that have been considered by many since the Feinblatt/Gant study in 1958, to be beneficial to reduce BPH symptoms. These chemicals, mainly amino acids, are used in many of the soon to be banned products.
The study was conducted by Dr. Henry M. Feinblatt and Dr. Julian C. Gant and reported in the Journal of the Maine Medical Association in March of 1958, Volume 49, Number 3.
The study deals with the “Value of glycine, alanine and glutamic acid combination,” in the treatment of BPH.
These three chemicals have generally been used by dozens, perhaps hundreds of non-prescription compounds aimed at the general public since 1958.
Were these remedies straight out of the Wild West’s Medicine Man’s wagon of hokkum, or do they have some beneficial results that the traditionalist medical men on the FDA panels refuse to recognize?
Let’s look at the Feinblatt/Gant study that started it all.
The doctors had been using these three amino acids to treat their allergy patients. One of the patients mentioned that his urinary problems had improved since he’d been taking the medications from the doctors.
This stirred their imagination and the two medical men decided to try the three way amino acid combination on a group of non-allergy patients. The tests proved that these BPH sufferers had a dramatic relief from their urinary and BPH symptoms.
They moved from there to a clinically stringent test. A group of 40 patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia were treated with glycine-alanine-glutamic acid capsules for three months.
The patient age range was from 37 to 75 years and weigh from 101 to 192 pounds. BPH complaints ranged in duration at the start of the test from one to six years by various patients.
Placebo capsules were given to half of the patients and the amino acids to half. The patients response results over three months were charted. (Understand here that most such tests should be conducted over six months for best reliability.)
Results of the clinical tests were published in this way. For the control group taking the amino acids, the doctors said the size of the prostate was reduced in 92% of the cases. Nocturia was relieved in 95% of cases. Urgent urination was relieved in 81% and frequency in 73%. Discomfort was reduced in 71% of the cases. No such results were observed in the placebo taking control patients.
Other medical authorities have conducted tests along the same lines to confirm or deny the Feinblatt/Gant findings.
In the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in 1962, Dr. Frederick Damrau of New York City reported such a test. His conclusions were similar. He said the combination of the three amino acids were used in a controlled cross-over test in forty cases of BPH. After three months on the test the patients reported nocturia was relieved or reduced in 95% of cases, urgency down in 81%, frequency lowered in 73% and delayed urination in 70%. Dr. Damrau said there were no adverse side effects or adverse reactions to the amino acids.
Other evidence the FDA ignored or discounted comes from Japan where a series of nine clinical tests were conducted at the department of urology of Kyoto University in Kyoto.
Some of these tests were double blind, which means there was no way the participants could have any idea if they were receiving the test material or a placebo.
The tests were published in the Acta Urological Japonica, volume 14, 1968.
Results for the amino acids therapy for hypertrophy of the prostate showed that the glycine-alanine-glutamic acid capsules were administered to thirty six cases of diagnosed uncomplicated BPH. The capsules gave satisfactory results in relieving subjective and objective symptoms and no side effects were observed in any of the patients.
In another of the tests, statistical results showed that improvement of symptoms were as follows:
• Urinary frequency reduced in 77.7%
• Nocturia relieved in 68.4%. Difficulty of urination relieved 77.3%
• Feeling of residual urine relieved in 71.4% Side effects were found in only one case and that was relieved with a gastrointestinal drug.
Now, one of the obvious questions is this: If these amino acids are so good, as these tests tend to show, why hasn’t one of the huge pharmaceutical giants leaped on the band wagon and brought out a tested, recognized and approved by FDA combination of these amino acids for the prostate sufferers?
The logical answer could be that their own testing did not match the results of the tests shown above. Or, the situation may be that the amino acids would not be a “proprietary” compound that they could patent, protect and profit from. It would be similar to spending millions to test a salt pill, and bring it out only to find that every othercompany could make the same salt pill.