I heard (yeah I know, all dumb questions start this way) that an enlarged prostate can be caused by not releasing semen often enough. What truth is there to this? Are there any medical reasons to rutinely induce ejaculation?
And, on a not quite related note: why will neither my urine nor stool change colors upon ingesting large quantities (or small amounts for that matter) of food coloring or dye?
Food colouring typically doesn’t change urine colour but it can change your stool colour. If you want an expirement go and eat about 5 blue popsicles and your poo will turn green. Also, if you are a drinker, drink a couple drinks mixed with Blue Caraco (sp?) and the same magic will happen.
I am not sure if you are trying to troll or not but the first question sounds like it can go either way. I will suppose that you wanted an honest answer. A good source of information on prostate cancer can be found at http://www.cancer101.net/prostate/wynk/research.htm#20. That specific link details the causes of it. Also, a simple web search will produce most of what you want.
HUGS!
Sqrl
i know this doesn’t answer your question, but it seems to me that you are trying way to hard to scientifically justify your masturbatory habits. Even going so far as to be doing experiments as to what will change the color of your semen? Confront your denial, and expound the ol’ rhetorical flourish without guilt.
[monor rant]
Jb, perhaps taking it easy on the poster may be in order? We are here to stamp out ignorance, are we not? Some seemingly “dumb” questions may not be so dumb after all…and I would hope I don’t have to justify my questions, or have to pass some “motivation for asking” litmus test before asking.
[/minor rant]
In an effort to address the OP’s question, and perhaps stamp out a bit of ignorance (still reading jb?)…
In nursing school, I paid close attention to our unit on my friend the prostate. Seems there is a condition known as chronic prostatitis, where, as the name would imply, the prostate suffers from ongoing inflammation. In many cases, common causes are ruled out (infection being the primary suspect), and head scratching ensues. I was taught that some evidence points to frequent ejaculation as providing some relief. Perhaps this is where the OP got the idea that frequent ejaculation could lead to prostatic health, and lack of same could be harmful.
Lo and behold, a search turned up the following recent article, in the well-respected and peer-reviewed International Journal of Urology. I stopped my search there, but I’m sure additional searching on, say Grateful Med, would turn up other research.
Shaky Jake
Similarly, some guy named Cecil Adams discusses congestive prostatitis in one of his columns.
Man, I can tell the most disgusting story about chronic bacterial prostatitis, from two months of surgery rotations I did in med school.
Another time, another place, perhaps.
So, an enlarged prostate can be caused by a number of things. Any MDs correct me, please. Just a med student.
Benign prostatic hypertrophy. Happens with age and testosterone exposure. This is why urinary stream slows down with age.
Prostate cancer, the #1 cancer in males. This is why when you get a little older, the doctor insists on sticking his finger in your rectum.
Prostatitis. This is an infection of the prostate from any number of sources. I don’t believe it is correlated with semen release, as the body has better ways of releasing semen, namely into the bladder or the bedsheets. Then again, if you get prostatitis, which is painful, one can get relief by forcing the infected secretions out. Doctors don’t usually recommend this anymore, but old-school urologists sometimes still call for a bit of prostate self-massage. Here is where the disgusting story alluded to above comes in. Nowadays, antibiotics seem to work better and involve fewer fingers in fewer orifices.
Now for the color question. I always wondered this, because in college I tried to get all my secretions to turn orange by drinking an ungodly quantity of Orange Minute Maid soda, which is quite possibly the Most Orange Substance Known to Mankind. Didn’t work. Your pee is basically overfiltered blood. The orange stuff first is digested (and probably broken down) by your stomach and intestines.
The stuff that makes your poo brown is called stercobilin, a derivative of bile salts, which your body uses in part to absorb fats. Urobilnogen (different derivative, same basic stuff) makes your pee yellow.
But, if you are determined, there are some drugs that will do the trick. Rifampin (an antibiotic) is really good at turning all of your secretions orange. Propofol (a sedative) is good at turning your urine green. I can’t validate the comments on blue curacao or blue popsicles, but I’m tempted to try it. I’ll consider it science.
Rifampin sounds like some fun stuff! That would definately make for a good trick. Good info, edwino. But jb, why would anyone need an excuse for jacking off? Don’t ask, don’t say. Maybe you do, maybe not. Nobody cares! Just one of those things, I’d say.
The question I asked is partly because I wonder about men I know who have prostate problems and whether I should associate that with nosex. But I also wonder if the body sometimes needs to release that stuff that it’s makeing anyway in a manner that is less like “uh oh, I’m full! <splurge>”
Well, that prostatitis page answers my question, but multiple sources would be more reliable. I’d really like to get to the bottom of this and make sure that some “non-profit prostate organization” isn’t just trying to get the whole world on a regular masturbation schedule!
I don’t know what you are after but…I did have blue poo once (sorry, don’t remember what did it) and if you take a hearty swig of Pepto Bismal you can get some jet black poo. As Bill Murray said, “striking”.
Hmmmm, backpack_joe, continue along those lines, and I’ll rescind my monor rant, beg jb for forgiveness, and jump on the “seems to me you’re trolling a bit” bandwagon. But, once more into the breach, and I’ll leave it at that.
Searching the internet is a wonderful skill to acquire. I amaze friends and co-workers by being able to come up with all sorts of information, often while they’re on the phone with me. Try going to http://www.google.com, and typing in a few search parameters, like “prostatitis”, Prostatodynia", and searching through the hits until you find what you’re looking for.
A free, public-access medical journal search engine, Grateful Med, is available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/databases/freemedl.html Medline, on the same page, will also search medical journals, but my musical tastes necessitate me recommending grateful med.
A few more citations, because I’m either a nice guy, or a sucker.
All bolding mine
http://www.urologyconsultants.com/prostati.htm this web site turned up this info
Non-bacterial Prostatitis
Treatment - a trial on doxycycline for 4 weeks is indicated to cover for Ureaplasma or Chlamydia. If doxycycline is not effective, many physicians would discourage further use of antibiotics. However, some physicians believe that prostate massage every 2 days combined with oral antibiotics (Septra or Floxin) may have some benefit in flushing out bacteria from deep within the prostate gland. Frequent ejaculation may also aid in flushing out the prostate. If antibiotics and prostate message fail, allopurinol may be useful. Some believe that uric acid in the urine causes irritation of the prostate when urine refluxes into the prostatic ducts. Allopurinol blocks the formation of uric acid. Other measures which may help alleviate symptoms include ibuprofen (anti-inflammatory), anticholinergics (relieve bladder spasms), and hot sitz baths.
A quick grateful med search found this abstract.
Thin RN, The chronic prostatitis syndromes. J R Army Med Corps 1997 Oct;143(3):155-9
ABSTRACT: Three chronic prostatitis syndromes are recognised, chronic bacterial prostatitis (CBP), chronic nonbacterial prostatitis (CNBP), and prostatodynia. All may occur in men of military age, and may tax the patience of medical officers and patients whose capacity for full duty will be impaired. Diagnosis depends on identifying micro-organisms in CBP and white cells in CNBP in prostatic secretion (EPS) expressed by prostatic massage. In prostatodynia there are clinical features of prostatitis but no evidence of inflammation. Prostatic massage should be preceded by trans-rectal ultrasound which may show prostatitis and other pathology, and has simplified the investigation of these syndromes. Management includes a high fluid intake, regular bowels with a soft stool, regular prostatic drainage by ejaculation and limited alcohol intake. Antimicrobials are indicated for CBP and probably for CNBP, and need to be continued for at least three months in many cases. Other measures for treating CNBP are less well established. Prostatodynia is an ill defined syndrome which requires careful evaluation and patients may need psychiatric therapy.
Oh, and I found a prostatitis newsgroup at http://www.mailgate.org/sci/sci.med.prostate.prostatitis/ where you can get a wealth of information.
All this took about ten minutes. Happy hunting, you’re on your own now.
Now, I’m late for my regularly-scheduled orgasm.
Shaky Jake
Now, I’m late for my regularly-scheduled orgasm.
Shaky Jake, i think i just figured out your name. And just which jake is being shaken.
Either that, or you are an epileptic fan of Chinatown.
jb
I recall reading somewhere that a doctor once gave some patients methylene blue to change the color of their urine to convince them that the OTHER medication he was giving them was actually having an effect. So it appears that at least one substance can change the color of urine.
Note that I am NOT recommending that you take methylene blue. I have no idea what the current opinion on the harmful or harmless properties of this substance are. You might wantr to check the PDR (Physician’s Desk Reference)about this first.