Prostate and Men's Health
March 25, 2018
How many men struggle with prostate problems and what are the most common prostate problems? Find out what some of the most common symptoms are and how you can keep your prostate healthy. Listen in to learn about how eating the right foods, and avoiding others, can improve your prostate health.
Similar Podcast Episodes
Transcript
DAR: Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition brought to you by Nutritional Weight & Wellness. I'm Darlene Kvist certified nutrition specialist and founder of Nutritional Weight and Wellness, a long time ago. We are a company that specializes in women's health, men's health, and even children's health. You know today we will spend this hour talking about men's health with one of our favorite guests, Greg Peterson, who has a wealth of information to share about prostate problems and everything else you can think of.
LEA: Welcome to all of you who are the early listening to the live show of Dishing Up Nutrition. If you miss any important facts or names of any supplements, remember that you can always listen again on our podcast of today's show. I am Lea Wetzell, a certified nutrition specialist and I have a master's degree in clinical nutrition.
DAR: And she has a lot of clients.
LEA: I've been around, not as long as Nutritional Weight & Wellness, but I've been around a long time. And I'm also a board member of the dietetics nutrition practice for the state of Minnesota. I just started my second term, so starting my fifth year. It is indeed a great pleasure to have Greg Peterson back on Dishing Up Nutrition to share his knowledge and expertise on men's health and especially about prostate problems.
DAR: And you know, many of our long-term listeners remember hearing Greg from previous shows and they're always requesting that we him back on.
LEA: Yeah. I always learn stuff when you're on here. You're just great information.
DAR: So we're going to talk his favorite topic. What's that, Greg?
GREG: Well I think nutrition in general, the family business. I think I maybe have mentioned before on the show that we started in our parents basement.
LEA: Right, NutriDyn. We're talking what year?
GREG: 1973. Fortunately I started when I was eight years old. It's kept me young. But yeah, I started that with my brother and I started the company in '73. My mom was the, you know, the indentured servant for many years and helped to build the company and we just built a great sales force with everybody. We were talking earlier too about Jeff Katke, the owner of Metagenics, he was actually one of my sales reps out of Wisconsin. And he and I came up with the idea of Metagenics back in 1983.
LEA: I'm thinking about how that, I mean that's worldwide.
GREG: It's an international company and probably one of the most respected companies in the niche of professional food supplements lines too. We were handling the NutriDyn product at the time, you know, the old NutriDyn, you know, we'd kind of reworked it after that 1983 period. But we were getting concerns and feedback from our practitioners on some of the NutriDyn products back then were not working as well, especially like your enzymes, more biologic types of types of products and so on. So we thought, well, we've got to do a little investigation here, what's going on? So we did go to independent labs and we found out that sure enough, some of the potencies of these enzyme products and so forth were not what they're supposed to be.
DAR: Right. And that's probably how it is happening in some companies today even.
LEA: Exactly, with the lack of regulations that is a big concern for people. So, I know your company does a great job of keeping on top of all of that. Right?
GREG: We really do. I think that Metagenics was the first company to become GMP certified. Good Manufacturing Practices certified because they really wanted to raise the bar is as far as quality goes. So we've got these enzymes back, you know, I looked at Jeff, Jeff looked at me, and he said we can't sell these products. And so we came up with the concept at that point where we have to start our own product line, you know, you got through the finances and so forth. And so, it became his company per se, but I worked with him on all the different formulas, initially put those together, and we became their first distributor, and have been working with them since 1983. So it's kind of an interesting background and of course we work with practitioners of all backgrounds and so forth, and they keep us really focused because, you know, we feel we're making a major contribution to the health of the American people by providing the highest quality products. I feel like I'm your teammate as well. So we have really had an enjoyable time.
LEA: Yeah. And you sell a lot to licensed practitioner doctors or naturopaths or chiropractors and nutritionists. That's where you sell your product.
GREG: Yep, exactly. That's exclusively where we sell our product.
DAR: So Greg, you know, we had a listener who sent us an email last week and she had a question about the use of folic acid in our Wellness Whey Protein Powder and she had some concerns about having folic acid in that. You want to talk a little bit about folic acid and folate, all those? Because there seems to be so much confusion out there about folic acid these days.
GREG: There really is Dar. I mean, and a lot of it is generated by the Internet, you know, people who are the so-called experts on the Internet and look at subgroups in the nutritional field, and they are either saying that you need to have activated folic acid or it is worthless. And that's not true. It is true that there is a segment of the American people who have difficulty converting dietary folic acid to the activated form.
DAR: I'm not sure that this is true, but I know I read this last night that that's like one out of four people.
GREG: Yes. That's about where it's at.
LEA: That have problems with methylation.
GREG: Exactly. You know, and they think it's a shutoff valve that either I can or cannot convert folic acid to the activated form, and the body uses it as the activated form. So that one out of four people you're mentioning Dar, they're not as efficient or as quick at converting that folic acid to the activated form, but they still could do it, unless you had like a genetic disease or something which is rare. And as we're talking earlier, I was saying there's been thousands of articles through the years, talking about the benefits of folic acid and all kinds of heart conditions, brain function, gut function, etc. You know, what do you do, throw the baby out with the bath water and all of a sudden say, OK, you know, people can't convert it. It's just not true because that's the form that God gave us, basically in our food is the folic acid. And our body is designed very efficiently to convert that to the active form which is at different speeds with different people.
DAR: I hope that explains that one. So before we get into our topic, Greg, the other thing that you do, besides supply supplements to a lot of practitioners, but you really supply so much more than that and that's through your educational seminars. Let's just back up a little bit because one of the things that we like about it is not only do we learn a lot, but we also get continuing education credits. But you know, you have a seminar going on, it seems like almost every week. Is that true?
GREG:Pretty much. And sometimes a couple in a week or weekend. It's our commitment. We're thinking, I don't want to just be a person who supplies food supplements. We want to be part of the health education and that's how you help practitioners to have a greater understanding of the different products and how to really clinically apply them effectively and safely. That's huge.
LEA: So you market your education classes toward practitioners or people in the general public can go too?
GREG:It's really for the practitioners. Because it is at a level where the majority of the general public wouldn't understand a lot of science and chemistry.
LEA: And you also have online webinar access for practitioners.
DAR: And I know that the last seminar I was at was the Great Lakes Seminar and you know, next to me was a medical doctor and then there were some nurses there, there were some naturopaths there. There were chiropractors, massage therapists, everyone getting educated. And I think what I like about it is you always dig into the research or whoever is presenting for you has dug into the research.
LEA: And the latest and the greatest information.
GREG: We really work very hard to get people who have something of significance to say.
DAR: Plus they also provide great food.
LEA: Yes. Yes. They do. And shakes, you're well-nourished when you go to those conferences. Break time already, we will have to get into today's topic once we come back from break. You are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition, brought to you today by Nutritional Weight & Wellness. Today we are discussing how a man's diet may be the cause of an enlarged prostate or the restriction of urine flow.
DAR: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. Today we're discussing prostate health with our special guest, Greg Peterson. Here's a question for you. Are you trying to understand how you or a loved one can restore prostate health naturally? If so, keep listening. If you want to share this information with your spouse or your partner, have them listen to the podcast of our live show. To listen, go to weightandwellness.com, and click on podcast. Now, if you have a question today, call us in studio 651-641-1071. So now we're going to get into our topic. OK, shoot away with some questions for Greg.
LEA: So how many men struggle with prostate problems?
GREG: Well, about 90 percent of them by the time they're age 70.
LEA: That's pretty significant.
GREG: Absolutely, is pretty close to a hundred percent.
LEA: I hear it a lot in consultations as a complaint.
GREG: I mean it is a real nuisance and sometimes it just hypertrophy or swelling of the prostate, and it is not necessarily going to become a prostate cancer or a major concern, but with any kind of inflammation you'll have to go to the restroom more often, frequent urination at night which disturbs your sleep. I was on a plane one time, and the guy sitting next to me before we even got off the ground had gone to the restroom three times and it was like three or four more times while we were in the air, and at that point that's a real nuisance. And so that can be some of the concerns, you can have incontinence where you're kind of leaking on a regular basis, sexual dysfunction, sleep problems, and ultimately, it can lead to prostate cancer. So that's a huge one for so many of the people.
DAR: Greg, let's talk about it so men can kind of visualize or their spouses can visualize what's actually happening to the prostate and how big is it and why is it such an issue for people.
GREG: Well, it's really, for such a small gland, it can be such a nuisance. As it swells and so forth, it just cuts off the flow from the bladder through the urethra, you know, and at that point it's like taking a garden hose and squeezing it, and you just don't get the flow and you can get a backlog and so forth. That could lead to urinary tract infections and, then we'll talk a little about the prostatitis, actual infection of the prostate. All kinds of problems or worst case scenario, it can even lead to prostate cancer. Much to my chagrin recently, I just read an article that was talking about the link between baldness and the risk for prostate cancer death.
LEA: Greg is very bald, listeners.
GREG:Partly it's shaved, you know, but yeah.
LEA: It looks good. You have a nice bald head.
GREG: Thank you. I appreciate that.
DAR: Follow up on that one. I think you had some research or something in an article or something.
GREG: Yeah. This article that came out recently in one of the scientific journals and they were talking about how baldness is tied to the risk of prostate cancer death. They said the risk is 1.5 times greater in bald men than in those with no baldness. That was all in the American Journal of Epidemiology back in 2016. So a relatively new journal and they say it's not so much when you have a receding hairline. It's more on the top of the head. That's one that you're more concerned about it being a risk to increase prostate cancer. So they say that the risk for fatal prostate cancer was 56 percent higher in men with any baldness than in those with no baldness and in men with moderate balding specifically, you know, that kind of vortex area. This was 83 percent higher. So we think there's a hormonal connection with it too.
DAR: So I read recently that it's actually, I always thought it was higher testosterone for men who had balding, but then I just read recently that it's higher estrogen.
GREG: Yes, and testosterone has really gotten to be known as the bad boy, right? We blame everything on testosterone and a lot of the therapy is to basically destroy your ability to produce testosterone through drugs and so on, but it's really the estrogen dominance that many times creates that inflammation of the prostate, much like it creates proliferation of ovarian and breast cancer in women.
LEA: Exactly, the bad types of estrogen.
GREG: The bad estrogens, exactly.
LEA: Which for men, they probably don't think of that as the connection, thinking they have estrogen issues.
GREG: No, and it becomes common with men too because our fat of course is in our belly and the belly fat has a very high concentration of an enzyme called aromatase. Aromatase takes and converts our testosterone to estrogen. As you get older, that's another risk factor in why we always talk about weight issues on the show, too.
LEA: So for that estrogen correlation. What are things that are driving the estrogen in men?
GREG: Well, I mean a lot of it is environmental, plasticizers, pesticides, herbicides. I mean all the different additives to our food and to our environment. Atrazine, we've heard about that, too. That's a very strongly estrogenic compound and so I think those are some of the factors and then you have this whole belly fat converting testosterone to estrogen. Where you're storing it. And I just think the foods we're eating, you know foods that are processed and so forth, they have these estrogenic kinds of materials in there too.
LEA: High sugar, bad fats, transfats.
DAR: So let's get back to that inflamed prostate because I think there's a lot of men out there who are listening today who that's going on or they're getting up three, four or five times a night and they're really tired of doing that. So let's help connect what's causing that. What are they eating that's maybe causing that? The first thing that I think of is, have you ever noticed that if you pull in to get gas in the morning, the number of men who are in there buying soda or a kind of doughnut?
LEA: Muffin or any sort of breakfast sandwich, high sugar.
DAR: And so we'd know that that's inflammatory. So that's making that prostate swell up a little bit. Every time they eat that stuff. So Greg, I know you know that we eat bacon and eggs for breakfast, right?
But Greg, you eat a special kind of shake. I know you've talked about it a lot.
GREG: Yeah, I came up with it because my lovely wife of 45 years, she's sitting next to me so I need to talk really nice. She's my life mate and I want her along, I mean this may sound a little morbid, but I always say that I want to die before you because I know you can live without me, I can't live without you. So I have to keep her healthy. You know, she's not a good swallower like many people are, and she just can't get down a lot of tablets and so forth and so I wanted to make this shake that contained as much nutritional support as possible. This would be good for men and women both because I put in some estrogen modifying factors into that shake, too. But you know, I don't know if you want me to go through the whole thing?
DAR: Yeah, I do. I think that people are really interested in this, they respect you and if it is working for you and Deb.
LEA: This will be in our transcript too, so if people are listening or on the podcast, if they want to look at this, they can see it on our website next week.
GREG: Absolutely and I will leave this with you too. And Deb is in such good health she is actually doing 50 push-ups over here in the corner while we talk. But I always start with the Fruits and Greens, so you get all your plant nutrients in there. And so I'll do a scoop of that.
DAR: So again, plant nutrients, Greg, what are you talking about? What's in there?
GREG: Oh, I mean every type of antioxidants are in there. All these different kinds of fibers and so forth that modulate, you know, heart disease and cholesterol and cancers and it's our nature's vitamin basically or supplement, plus they taste great.
LEA: Super tasty, my kids love it.
GREG: And eight different flavors so you never get taste fatigue with it as well.
DAR: In the past I think people would put greens in their shakes and it would be terrible.
LEA: Yes, bitter, you would have to mask it.
DAR: Now you have the greens but you also have the taste.
GREG: Yes, we have that mastered now, too. So I started out with a scoop of that. Then I'll do something usually like some kind of a flax or almond or hemp milk, to give a little more creamy texture. Then I'll put a tablespoon of fresh ground flaxseed that contains lignans and different things that help to metabolize those toxic estrogens that Lea was mentioning and it gives a kind of a nutty flavor. You grind it in the coffee grinder, get it really nice and smooth, it really has a nice nutty flavor to it. And then I'll add in, Dar got me onto this, I add in a half of an avocado. The creamy consistency and the nutrient value to it and the essential fatty acids and everything is over the top. So I'll do that and then I'll put in a tablespoon of a fish oil to get our Omega-3's in there, we have a good tasting one. And then I'll do a teaspoon of a good probiotic, like the bifido product. Then, I'll put a scoop of one of our medical foods. We have the UltraInflamX, UltraClear Renew, we had the Estrium and so forth. Now, if I'm trying to push more of the estrogen detoxification will use the Estrium, if it is more of an inflammatory situation, I do the InflamX. And then a little cashew butter or something like that to make it last longer, and a few ice cubes for a little more water. And voila!
LEA: Nice, that sounds delicious. Well guys, it's break time again. You're listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. I am Lea Wetzell certified nutrition specialist. I'm in the studio today with Dar Kvist, also a certified nutrition specialist and our special guest Greg Peterson. He's the co-founder of NutriDyn, a company providing ongoing education and superior quality nutritional supplements to healthcare professionals. We'll be right back.
DAR: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. How many of you have gone to your doctor or nurse practitioner and had been told to follow a low fat diet and use butter substitutes, you know, margarine rather than real butter. And then you've listened to Dishing Up Nutrition and we say eat butter and other good fats. You know, if you're confused and want to know how to eat to maintain health, let me suggest taking our Weight and Wellness Weekend Series, that's the weekend of April 20 and it's three days. We started on Friday evening. Go on Saturday and Sunday and you get a lot of questions I answered.
LEA: Yeah, it's, it's really informative.
DAR: And nurses get 14.4 continuing education credits for coming plus a lot of information for their family. So if you're interested, call us, our office at 651-699-3438 or if you want more information, it's all on our website@weightandwellness.com. So Lea, we had a question.
LEA: Yeah, we had a caller who didn't want to stay on the line, but her question was she does a similar shake to Greg's, that we just talked about before break, and she was wondering, she adds a kefir to it and wanted to know if that is OK. And our answer to that is it depends on the kind of kefir. A lot of the kefir on the market is low fat high sugar because they add flavorings to it. I think a real kefir which is, you know, full fat plain, if you're adding something like that, I think it could be very beneficial and add a lot of good bacteria, which is important.
DAR: But for you, you would not do that would you?
LEA: Right if you're dairy sensitive like me, it doesn't work. So it depends on the person but if you are dairy tolerant and you could find a good sourcing, I think it's a fine thing to add.
DAR: So that's kind of how when we're working with clients, that's how we problem solve with them.
LEA: Exactly, it's all individual.
DAR: So, let's talk, Greg, a little bit more about prostate cancer, some of the risks, some of the other things that we know people have questions about that or prostatitis.
GREG: I think the one thing us guys are most concerned about is the prostate cancer. Hypertrophy is problematic and a nuisance, but we don't want to ultimately die of prostate cancer.
LEA: It is one of the leading cancers in men.
GREG:It is. This year, they predict 164,000 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed. So it's a lot.
DAR: Say that again.
GREG: 164,000 new cases in 2018. That's what they're predicting. So it is a real problematic thing. Like you were saying earlier, Lea, it's a one of the most deadly cancers. One out of 15 men in their 60s will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, so a pretty high statistic there too, and they find that when they do biopsies on men between ages 60-69, 65 percent will have prostate cancer, rarely the aggressive type, but still, whether they have symptoms or not, 65 percent will have prostate cancer.
DAR: So that would've been really interesting to look back at maybe 75 years ago or a hundred years ago. Wonder what the percentage of men at that point would have had prostate cancer?
GREG: Oh, I am sure way, way, way less know the whole environmental impact and those are the things we talked about that really contribute to that.
DAR: If I have a gentlemen with prostate cancer, one of the things that I take them off of is their golf game. Why would that be? What are they doing to those golf greens that's so toxic to men?
GREG: Absolutely and I remember years ago, hopefully guys aren't doing this anymore, but you don't always have a ball washer, guys spit on or lick their golf ball and just wipe it off with the rag they had in their bag. And I can remember as a young kid, I would go out in the public courses I'd walk barefoot in the game and just have that stuff come right up.
LEA: They are high pesticide.
DAR: And people don't realize these little things make a difference. Or Lea, it depends on what men are drinking too.
LEA: Exactly because when we're looking at another correlation, it could be sugar in many forms and really for prostate health, it's very important to be drinking enough water. And when we're looking at this connection, you know, my first recommendation is to drink at least eight to 10 glasses of filtered water daily. If you want a healthy prostate gland, you have to stop drinking soda and limit alcohol. Alcohol is a big one, too. The bottom line is to switch to water primarily as your hydration. This is really simple and it does work.
DAR: You know, it's so interesting though that I bet if men are listening, they hear, oh, drink eight to 10 glasses of water. They'll say, I'll be up all night. I won't ever get to sleep. So Greg, sometimes people actually get infection, don't they? In the prostate. Talk a little bit about that because that often happens with maybe younger men or is that not true?
GREG: It can. Because when you start having inflammation of the prostate and you're getting kind of backup for lack of a better term, you'll start developing prostatitis, which is infection of the prostate. There's actually 3 different kinds of prostatitis. You have the acute which will have infection basically, chills and fever, muscle aches, low back pain, pain at the base of the penis and so forth. And that's something that you really want to get immediate medical attention for because that can be a very serious situation. Then you have chronic and that many times comes up after a urinary tract infection that men have that may be sub-clinical but it is there and created inflammation, infection, so forth in the prostate. And this is more common in older men. They'll have more chronic ongoing infection. And that could be the urgency to urinate, painful urination, it could be pain after ejaculation, blood in the semen, low back pain, rectum pain, and again urinary tract infections. So that's more the chronic type. Then you have asymptomatic prostatitis, so they have it but they don't even know it. That can be things like they've had this urinary tract infection, they've had a groin injury, going to be like in sports and so forth and didn't realize it or they could have had prostatitis before, it's just kind of lingering at that point too.
DAR: Then I bet they have more aches and pains throughout their body. Because they have kind of a low grade infection.
GREG: Yeah more like pelvic, low back pain, you know, those kinds of things are going to be more common in those people, those guys.
DAR: So we know that food makes a difference. So we kind of talked a little bit about when your people are looking at their breakfast, you know, we say give up the doughnuts and coffee and the fast food and so many people still do that.
LEA: Yep swing in, get their fast food breakfast on their way to work.
DAR: And so Greg's idea on making a shake is a great one.
LEA: And it's easy, right? Just throw it all together, blend it up. And you're on your way. I did that for years when I only gave myself a half an hour window to get out the door. I would drink it on the way to work.
DAR: Lea, I think a lot of people, they open up the cereal box and pour it in.
LEA: They do, right.
DAR: Well what's wrong with that?
LEA: It's high sugar.
DAR: I don't think people realize that. Unless they have been to some of our classes.
LEA: Right. Yes. And sugar causes inflammation which inflames the prostate. But yes, cereal is very high in sugar. I know it's easy, but it's not a good idea for breakfast.
DAR: I know we're going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to talk about some supplements that help to reduce some of that inflammation and support the prostate gland.
LEA: That sounds like a great idea. You're listening to Dishing Up Nutrition and we're discussing prostate health today with special guest Greg Peterson. Next week tune in to hear Kara and Nell discuss that you don't need to be perfect to lose weight. Nell lost 90 pounds five years ago and she admits that she wasn't always perfect, but from taking our classes and meeting regularly with her nutritionist, she continually learn what foods made her body feel good. As she chose to eat these foods, the weight began fall off. It isn't about counting calories or points. It's about eating real food and feeling satisfied. That is exactly what we teach in our 12 week Nutrition 4 Weight Loss Series, you can lose weight and feel satisfied. Nutrition 4 Weight Loss is a plan that keeps your body in a happy place -losing weight, feeling good with great energy. If you want more information, call us in the office at 651-699-3438 for details or read about it, the Nutrition 4 Weight Loss plan, on our website, weightandwellness.com
DAR: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. As nutritionists we see clients with all types of inflammation. Maybe inflammation of the joints, or inflammation of the muscles or inflammation of the prostate, resulting in many trips to the bathroom at night. For many of our clients when they eliminate sugar, flour, and dairy. Those are big things. When they eliminate that from their diet the inflammation goes away, but for others, we often suggest adding an anti-inflammatory supplement to ease the pain and discomfort. I think we all know the over the counter medication such as Tylenol or Advil, come with some cautionary limits. I'm not sure everyone knows that to know that. So I suggested a natural anti-inflammatory that helps with pain management from Metagenics called Kaprex. I love Kaprex. You know, it's all natural, no additives, no harmful side effects, and it works for most people. So I suggest taking two to four soft gels per day for best results. I have been known to take six pills and you know, we have an available at all of our seven locations and it's available online at weightandwellness.com. So we were going to talk about some other supplements, right?
LEA: Yes, we were. So as we've talked about, we know that eating is critical, right? Eating healthy foods is critical. And that's the step one for reducing that prostate inflammation and drinking you're drinking your water is also critical. But we want to look at some supplements, Greg, let's talk about a couple of them to help reduce the inflammation of the prostate. Start with a supplement that I, you know, I often use with men to help in the inflammation of the prostate called Concentrated Ultra Prostagen. Could you explain that a little bit?
GREG: Yeah, that is such an effective product. It's really one of those homerun products that you have. And it has a very high concentration of saw palmetto, which, you know, has been around for some time, but you to have enough of it and you have to have it in an active form. So you'd have to have active factors in there as well. And what it does is it really, like we were talking about earlier, a testosterone is good, you know, what men want to have testosterone. It's antidepressive, you know, it's good for muscle, you know, keeping muscle mass is good for sexual function and so on. But when that testosterone, it gets converted to dihydrotestosterone known is DHT now that's a very aggressive androgen and that's what stimulates the prostate to swell and ultimately can lead to prostate cancers and problems. So what that saw palmetto does is it inhibits the conversion from testosterone to that harmful dihydrotestosterone. So it still keeps a man a man, we don't want to eliminate the testosterone, but want to make sure we modulate down that harmful form of testosterone. And I know Dar always likes me to talk about the statistics, the research right. So I came armed with research as well. This is out of the Urology International Journal in 2010, they looked at over a hundred men with prostatitis problems, had over a 50 percent reduction in prostate symptoms as well as the prostatitis. Ninety percent of the patients symptoms were gone after one month when they compare it to the group that was on the antibiotics only that only 27 percent of the symptoms are gone after one month. So basically, you know, a 90 percent success rate compared to a 27 percent success rate. Huge.
LEA: So with that type of supplement, what are we looking at for amounts and how long to take to notice help?
GREG:I'm a great believer, like Dar was saying earlier with the Kaprex, when you need it, hit it hard, you know. And I will go as high as, like you were saying, six a day to start if there is a lot of inflammation and they're up urinating, you know, half the night and so forth. All those problems.
LEA: Dividing it out through the day maybe?
GREG:Two, two and two is best. If they just absolutely can't do that in three intervals, I'll do three twice a day and then get it to the point where now you're becoming more asymptomatic, you know, the symptoms are pretty much under control. Then I back it down to one or two a day and probably that will be one of their foundation nutrients that they take from then on. And then also know there's nettles which is important too, and I don't want to beat this to death, but the nettles in there, a high concentrated nettles is an anti-inflammatory. Like we were talking about, it's a natural diuretic so it helps you to empty the bladder. So you just don't have that residual bladder. That's what the urgency comes from is you never really are able to empty the bladder well and it reduces the bacterial prostatitis because you don't have this urine reservoir there all the time and possibly becoming infected. And so they look at, again, to some of the studies that if you're on the nettles product, that 89.6 percent after one month had no infection in the study they had done on it compared to the group on the antibiotic alone. And that was only, again, 27 percent. So you know, when you add the saw palmetto with the nettles and you add the zinc in there, we know that's important for suppressing the prostate cells from converting to malignant cells and also is very immuno-enhancing and those are just three of the main components of the Concentrated Ultra Prostagen. Love the product.
DAR: And that's a Metagenics product.
GREG: A Metagenics product.
DAR: So it's quality.
GREG:Very high quality. Like I said in the past, Metagenics is the only product line that is triple GMP certified. We know the GMP stands for Good Manufacturing Practices. Most your companies, you're lucky if they're one GMP certified, singularly GMP certified. They have three different independent agencies that are certifying their quality.
LEA: That's awesome. That's great.
DAR: So my favorite supplement or one of them from Metagenics, is Kaprex and I mentioned it before, but let's talk a little bit more about. And I usually use it with men who have prostate problems.
GREG: I think any inflammatory condition, because again, you cannot duplicate mother nature and this is a proprietary, very high concentrated unique hops extract because there's over 300 different types of hops components and so some are way more anti-inflammatory than others. The ones that Metagenics uses in the Kaprex have the highest anti-inflammatory inhibitory effect on inflammation and pain than any other hops extract has. And what it does with mother's nature is it can selectively inhibit what they call inducible PGE2 or COX2. We hear a lot about COX2 inhibitor drugs and so on. The inducible is like, it sounds, it's induced by injury, infection, stress, trauma and so forth. That's the PGE2 you want to inhibit or want to modulate. There's also a constitutive PGE2 or COX2. That's the form that actually protects the cell membranes from inflaming or deteriorating and so forth. So the body can use natural herbals and plant based foods, supplements and so forth to just modulate down the inducible and leaves the constitutive, the good PGE2 alone.
DAR: That's great.
GREG: It's really cool, it can do that. I love that product and it works as a cell signaler basically. So it tells the cell I want you to reduce inflammation. Where some of these other factors basically tell the cell I want you to increase inflammation. So that's kind of roughly the mechanism why that hops extract works so well.
LEA: So Dar, you use this a lot for prostate, how much would you recommend of Kaprex?
DAR: I always say 4, I know the research shows that one or two is effective, but honestly my clients tell me if they have a lot of inflammation they need 4. And maybe not all the time, but as the inflammation decreases in their body, then they can decrease the amount of Kaprex.
GREG: And never a downside.
DAR: I was gonna say that too. It's not like something that we, you know, like some of these other anti-inflammatories that are prescription based, you have to be more careful with those. So you were signaling me, my dear.
LEA: Yeah. Oh we're just getting close to the end. We are still a few more minutes but we're getting close.
DAR: OK, so with just a little bit of time, Greg, we want to talk about, we talked a little bit about how men have excess amounts of negative bad estrogens and we want to detox some of those bad ones and this is for women too. Can we just talk about some of the things that, that we have that we can, oh.
LEA: Yeah, sorry Dar, we got short time. What would be a quick?
GREG: I was thinking Estrium, a medical food. That is good for men and women that helps to detoxify these toxic estrogens.
DAR: So Greg, thank you so much. We could spend hours. At Nutritional Weight & Wellness our goal is to help each and every person experience better health through eating real food. It's a simple yet powerful message. Eating real food is life changing and thank you and thank you listeners. That was great.
