Male Pelvis

urine. Your urine stream may be weak or intermittent. You find yourself getting up at night to urinate, or you feel like your bladder is still partly full after you’ve gone. These are all signs of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), an enlargement of the prostate gland.

Statistics suggest that BPH is hard to avoid. More than half of all men over age 50 have significant prostate enlargement, and the rest have at least some. Simply getting older seems to be the main risk factor.

Male Reproductive Tract

The vast majority of men have some degree of prostate involvement as they age; it’s a consequence of aging that’s almost unique to the human species. Enlargement does not inevitably lead to drugs or surgery, however.

The best way to attack the problem early is by getting routine prostate exams every year after age 55. And some doctors contend that it’s possible to slow enlargement enough to avoid surgery and drugs, especially if you take the right steps at the first signs of problems. The steps they recom­mend include dietary changes, herbs, and nutritional therapy.

Bedsore Skin

ulcers, because it ensures that they get the appropriate nutrient intake every day.

A multivitamin/mineral supplement is especially important for older people who are confined to bed or to wheelchairs. They are frequently defi­cient in a wide array of vitamins.

Vitamin C Plays a Major Role

One of the most common single vitamin deficiencies among the elderly is vitamin C. Too little of this vitamin opens the door to

Vitamin C

thinning skin, capil­lary fragility, and, consequently, bedsores.

Some studies even indicate that vitamin C deficiency may be the key nutritional factor in bedsore development. Brazilian researchers found that hospital patients with bedsores had lower levels of ascorbic acid, or vitamin C, than those patients without bedsores. Fortunately, studies have also shown that supplements of vitamin C can significantly aid in the healing of bedsores. Doctors discovered that patients with bed­sores who took a regimen of vitamin C, along with zinc and arginine, healed faster than those who took supplements without these nutrients.

Vitamin C deficiency can double your healing time, doctor routinely put their patients who are being treated for or who are at risk for pressure ulcers on 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C a day. Vitamin C won’t help if there is no deficiency, but the extra vitamin won’t hurt, either.

Zinc Speeds Healing

Like vitamin C, zinc has been linked in studies to preventing bedsores and helping them heal.

Zinc Food Source

If there is a zinc deficiency, healing time is retarded by 50 percent. Like vitamin C, supplemental zinc won’t do any good if there is no deficiency. But zinc deficiency is so common that I routinely supplement it as well.

The Daily Value for zinc is 15 milligrams, an amount that you can get from either foods or supplements. To add some superior food sources of zinc to your diet, try eating more seafood and shellfish, wheat germ, and whole- grain breads and cereals.