 There's a very common issue many men get around middle age, which is an enlarged prostate, or BPH. Now, most of the time when men come to me in my practice they're saying that they wake up in the night with nighttime urination, or nocturia. They often have urinary frequency or dribbling. Some men will say that they wake up for the first time in their life and they actually have an urgency, or almost an incontinence. And on top of that, there can be issues with sexual performance and libido as well. Now all of these fall into one main pattern differentiation diagnosis in my profession. And so I thought we would share East versus West, how we can treat BPH. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hine, author of the health book, Master of the Day, and doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. So before we jump into this video, there are two very important links right below. The first is for a free guide I've put together, four daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. And the second is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, you can reach out to my private practice and clinic with the information right below this video. So let's talk about what is an enlarged prostate, right? Your doctor may have told you you have BPH or benign prostatic hyperplasia. Now this basically just means that a person has an enlarged prostate gland. Now the symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia include frequent urination, particularly nocturia or nighttime urination. For example, men will often come to me and say they wake up two or three times a night. A weak stream dribbling at the end of urination and often a sensation that you can't fully empty your bladder. Now commonly men will often present with diabetes secondary to this, they'll often present with cardiovascular issues, heart issues, and many will often have libido issues as well. Now one of the issues why the prostate can get enlarged is due to excess estrogen. So for example, men who have a higher percentage of body fat will often have higher estrogen levels and that can be one of the reasons why they're having prostate issues as well. But what do you actually do about it? There's not a particular home remedy I can recommend besides getting healthier and losing weight, but there are very, very effective formulas in traditional Chinese medicine used for thousands of years, verified scientifically, empirically, and even in some countries like Japan, they're often over the counter, basically like a pharmaceutical or OTC kind of medication for men who have nighttime urination and BPH symptoms. It's just commonly observed as a formula you give to middle-aged men, for example. Now within the field of traditional Chinese medicine, this pattern falls into the diagnosis of what we call kidney chi deficiency. Now the kidney is viewed as the battery with a capital B in life. It is basically the conceptual area where your vitality or life force exists. Now for many people as that wanes as time goes on or for some men that are overworked like the CEO type that are prematurely gray in their 30s, they can develop these symptoms in their early 30s instead of their mid 50s or mid 60s when it would be more natural for a man to kidney chi deficiency often presents with symptoms in varying areas of your body. The first is genitourinary. So issues with urination, BPH and large prostate with the libido sexual performance or getting erections and secondarily it can be related to fatigue or depression. It can also be related to pain, back pain, knee pain. The most common scenario I see here is men who just say they chronically tend to throw out their low back. See it all the time. This can be a 30 year old or a 50 year old but is more commonly a middle-aged man issue. So that is the pattern differentiation within traditional Chinese medicine. Also premature graying can fall in here. So how do we treat it? In particular, there's one very famous formula called Shen Qihuan, which is kidney chi pill. Now this formula goes back to a book called The Discussion of Cold Damage and it's from around the year maybe two, 250 years after Christ. So let's jump into a little research paper here and I want to show you this formula being used clinically to be verified to improve these symptoms of BPH. Now in one paper here, that is called The Effects of a Chinese herbal medicine on patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia. They talk about this particular formula that I just talked about, Shen Qihuan, kidney chi pill. Now in particular, let's zoom down to the results here where they said the mean IPSS total score, which is an international prostate symptom scoring system, was decreased by 2.5 points after eight weeks of treatment with the formula. Now the mean voiding score was decreased by 1.7 points. The mean incomplete emptying score was decreased by 0.8 points. And there is a trend in the voiding residual urine volume. So basically how much basically their bladder felt like it still needed to be emptied. Now, in addition, this formula is often used for low libido or issues with erections and that kind of thing. A secondary issue with diagnosing kidney chi deficiency is that many men either have urinary symptoms or basically libido or erectile symptoms or commonly both. So that is where BPH comes from a TCM point of view and mostly can be prevented by living a good lifestyle, regular exercise, having a healthy BMI. But worse comes to worse if that is an issue around middle age. This formula is one of the one that works clinically like a charm. No sweat. I can tell you from my private practice, this is an issue with very, very high rate of success, 90, 95%, after about two to three weeks of treating the kidney deficiency that we diagnose it as. All right, guys. That's what I have for you here today on BPH. Check out the links right below this video that I mentioned earlier and I'll see you soon.