Enlarged Prostate? Check This One Number

If you wake up multiple times at night needing to pee or feel like your bladder never fully empties, your prostate is probably already enlarged.

But if you want to limit its ongoing growth, a new study published in the Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition now shows that men with better overall heart and mental health scores have much lower chances of developing an enlarged prostate.

Many of the same things that damage your heart might also contribute to prostate enlargement.

To find out how strong this relationship is, researchers in the UK analyzed health data from over 26,000 men in the UK Biobank, a large ongoing health study.

They looked at each participant’s Life’s Crucial 9 (LC9) score—a number that reflects both cardiovascular and mental health.

The LC9 score builds on an earlier tool called Life’s Essential 8, created by the American Heart Association.

That version looked at diet, physical activity, sleep, blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, body weight, and smoking.

LC9 adds one important factor: mental health, specifically, the presence or absence of depression.

Each of these nine components is scored from 0 to 100. The final LC9 score is the average, with higher numbers reflecting better overall health.

The team then tracked who developed enlarged prostate problems over time and compared the LC9 scores of the different groups.

Here’s what they discovered:

Those in the highest health group (LC9 score in the top 25%) had about 26% lower odds of having an enlarged prostate compared to those in the lowest group.

After accounting for age, race, education, income level, and other health conditions, those in the top 25% of LC9 scores were still 23% less likely to have an enlarged prostate than those in the bottom 25%.

The relationship followed a clear pattern: the higher the health score, the lower the prostate problem risk.

The biggest protective benefit seemed to kick in once men reached a score of about 72.5 on the LC9.

The benefit was even larger in men living in wealthier neighborhoods, suggesting that healthcare access, quality of services, stress, and environment also play a role.

No link was found between LC9 scores and prostate cancer, suggesting that cancer may develop through different biological pathways.

A heart-healthy diet, regular physical activity, maintaining a healthy weight, getting enough sleep, not smoking, and taking care of your mental health can go a long way toward increasing your LC9 score—and lowering your risk of an enlarged prostate.

This study clearly shows that lifestyle changes can improve your prostate. But you don’t have to turn your life upside down.

Here are simple, natural steps thousands of readers have used to shrink their prostate down to a healthy size…