It’s important that you engage in exercise for prostate health, and here’s why. Exercise and prostate health are a winning combination. Both aerobic and anaerobic exercise (resistance exercise) can help reduce your risk of an enlarged prostate (benign prostatic hyperplasia, BPH), prostatitis, and prostate cancer.
One excellent reason to keep exercising is to keep your weight at a healthy level, because being overweight or obese increases your risk of prostate cancer and also hinders recovery from prostate treatment.
Exercise for prostate health can boost your immune system, making you less likely to fall victim to prostate problems, and helps your body resist inflammation, which contributes to prostate disease.
Need more convincing? Research has shown that men who exercise the equivalent of three to six hours of walking every week are less likely to develop prostate cancer, so all the more reason to exercise for prostate health! In another study, men who already had prostate cancer had a 61 percent lower risk of disease progression if they walked seven hours per week compared with men who walked less than 30 minutes per week.
The authors of a study from the University of British Columbia noted that “most of the literature supports a clinically significant, independent, and strong inverse relationship between exercise and the development of BPH/LUTS [benign prostatic hyperplasia/lower urinary tract symptoms].” Given the findings of these and other studies, it seems like a wise idea to incorporate exercise into your lifestyle to support and promote prostate health.
References
Richman EL et al. Physical activity after diagnosis and risk of prostate cancer progression: data from the Cancer of the Prostate Strategic Urologic Research Endeavor. Cancer Research 2011 Jun 1; 71(11): 3889-95
Sea J et al. Review of exercise and the risk of benign prostatic hyperplasia. The Physician and Sportsmedicine 2009 Dec; 37(4): 75-83
