When you talk to your doctor about prostate health, the last thing you’d expect from him is a natural prostate solution that heads prostate troubles off at the pass.

Luckily, you have other options — and they start with the manly mineral that’s essential for your prostate health.

It’s zinc, and here are the two most important things you need to know about it:

1) The highest concentrations of zinc in your body are in your prostate.
2) Up to 60 percent of American men don’t get enough zinc.

Clearly, your prostate needs its zinc. And just as clearly, it’s not getting it. You’ll want to fix that ASAP, because studies have shown that zinc can inhibit the enzyme that converts testosterone into DHT, the androgen that makes prostates swell.

In other words, shrinking zinc levels lead to a growing prostate — and that’s the one part “down there” you want to keep small.

That’s not all zinc can do for you: This mineral is critical to all-around male sexual function. It can help you to maximize your testosterone production, and even make sure the testosterone you already have stays around longer.

But since your body doesn’t store zinc, you need to find a way to get it every single day — and unless you’re really into oysters, that’s going to mean a supplement.

Don’t grab the first one off the shelf, because the most common zinc supplements are made from zinc sulfate, a form of the mineral that’s lousy on stomachs.

Think gas and diarrhea. Think embarrassing moments. Then think about something gentler, like zinc citrate or zinc monomethionine. It’s worth a couple extra bucks.

You don’t need too much — about 25 mg a day should do the trick for most men, and remember not to go overboard here: Too much zinc can be as bad for you as too little.

Don’t stop with your minerals — antioxidants can also play a key role in prostate health, especially the lycopene found in tomatoes. One study from Harvard found that men who ate foods high in this deep red pigment slashed their risk of prostate problems by 45 percent.

But like zinc, lycopene is something we just don’t get enough of from diet alone. In fact, you’d have to eat a large tomato at every meal and two at bedtime to get what you really need.

No one loves tomatoes that much — so while you’re shopping for the right zinc supplement, pick up some lycopene as well.

Good thing they can’t patent tomatoes!

You know how the drug industry works: They’re not after the best treatments — just ones they can slap a patent on and then jack up the price by several thousand percent.

Now, a new study finds that a key nutrient in tomatoes may be as effective as some of the world’s top-selling drugs when it comes to cholesterol control — and that has me wondering just how much a jar of red sauce would fetch if Big Pharma was in charge.

Pasta night could break the bank — and pizza might be worth its weight in gold.

In any case, Australian researchers examined data from 14 studies published over the past 55 years on lycopene, a powerful antioxidant found in watermelon, pink grapefruit, and guava.

But nothing contains quite as much of this stuff as those tomatoes.

At first, the researchers didn’t find anything worth getting excited over — overall, the studies showed no real effect on cholesterol from lycopene.

But then they stumbled onto that old trick used to make nutrients look ineffective: dose. Many of the studies just didn’t use enough lycopene to make a difference — and when the researchers excluded those and focused only on trials that involved 25 mg a day or more, they found a jaw-dropper: Lycopene slashed LDL cholesterol levels by an average of 10 percent.

None of the trials directly compared lycopene to statins, but maybe someone should give it a shot — because the researchers wrote in the journal Maturitas that the effect was comparable to low-dose statins.

In addition, the four studies that measured blood pressure found an average drop of 5.6 points in the systolic (top) reading… but no change in the lower number.

The researchers say the best way to get lycopene is from cooked tomatoes, which contain more of the antioxidant than raw ones. You’ll find those 25 mg a day in either a pint of tomato juice or 50 grams of tomato paste.

Of course, a daily pint of V-8 probably won’t cure a serious cholesterol problem — but that still doesn’t mean you have to turn to statins. Turn to some other cholesterol-lowering foods, such as nuts, oatmeal and olive oil.

And if that’s not enough to do the trick and you can’t think of anything in your lifestyle that’s keeping your levels high, try red yeast rice. It’s essentially a natural statin — and, as a satin, does come with more of a risk of side effects than, say, a handful of pecans.

But it’s a whole lot better for you than cholesterol meds — and since it’s not patented, red yeast rice is a whole lot cheaper, too.

There are more foods with benefits making headlines — including vegetables that may cure infections.

Keep reading!

But there’s another prostate condition called benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) that’s making life miserable for hundreds of thousands of older men. If you suffer from BPH, you know the misery I’m talking about…

by Dr. Alan Inglis

If the latest research is any indication, your next doctor visit should include a prescription for tomatoes.

A study has found that lycopene, an antioxidant, can cut the building up of plaque that leads to atherosclerosis. Lycopene is found in all of the healthy red-tinged fruits and vegetables. They include tomatoes, red peppers and red grapefruit.

The researchers divided animals into several groups and gave them varied diets. Two of the groups were given high-fat diets, with one group receiving a lycopene supplement and the other a statin.

Lycopene supplements were found to be superior to statins. The group that received the lycopene showed lower blood serum levels of total and LDL cholesterol.

This could be yet another reason why those who eat a Mediterranean diet stay so heart- healthy-it’s all of those recipes that include tomatoes.

So the next time your doctor takes a look at your cholesterol (you know it’s inevitable) and pushes a prescription for a statin your way, push back. Tell him about this finding and let him know you’re going to redden your plate for a natural way to manage your cholesterol.