You know, men are super anxious about PSA Tests. The higher the number, the more of a problem is usually what men think. They think that they are going to die today. And that’s not true. 

I did a PSA episode on the podcast a while back which you should definitely check out before diving into this article. But you have already listened to it, well then you’re ready for this because I’m going to go a little bit more into PSA doubling time and what that means for you. 
Let’s get into it. 

Follow us on the platform of your choice:

EPISODES NOTES

PSA Stands For Patient Stimulated Anxiety?

Well of course it doesn’t medically stand for that but with the number of men that I see at my clinic that come in with anxiety over their PSA scores, it might as well mean that. 

PSA numbers are misunderstood often when it comes to prostate tests by patients because it does really increase their anxiety and I don’t blame them. It’s a number to definitely not take lightly but the thing is that men need to see that number and be the captain of their own ship when it comes to healthcare. They have to be able to have better conversations with their urologist about their own health. Even with their general practitioner, men need to be much better about having these conversations surrounding their health. 

And the best way for you to have these conversations is to have basic fundamental knowledge around health such as PSA numbers. There is no need to have anxiety around this number first and foremost and I explain much more in my book about the PSA test coming out soon (you can subscribe to my newsletter to be the first to know when the book drops this year!)

For now, if you’re a man dealing with a high PSA, unsure what that number means, don’t allow yourself to get caught up in the what if. Just be present. 

What is PSA Doubling Time?

What prompted me to do an episode on this was that I recently wrote a report to my audience about a study that just came out, showing that essentially that a plant-based diet is protective against prostate cancer.

When you break the study down a little bit more, it highlights a study that shows a healthier lifestyle and a plant-based diet increased PSA doubling time. Of course, I got a lot of emails from people asking why is doubling time a good thing with PSA. 

Well, here’s the deal and I want you to go back and listen to episode 6 of the podcast about PSA because it’ll give you fundamental knowledge about what it is. The longer the doubling time the better. The plant-based diet mentioned in the study is actually increasing the doubling time of patients that are on the diet than those who are not on the diet. And those that were not on the plant based diet had their doubling time decreased. 

So the longer, the doubling time, the better. So a longer doubling time is a good thing. So in this study, showing that plant-based diet increased the doubling time of patients on the diet versus those that were not on a diet, which had a shorter doubling time of PSA, they did better.

The definition of PSA doubling time is how long it takes for PSA to double in value in number. And this becomes even more important before a diagnosis of prostate cancer but even after a diagnosis of prostate cancer because it’s used to determine if the patient is having some sort of reoccurrence of prostate cancer. 

You want that number to be much longer. You don’t want a shorter number. 

There is a lot more to the PSA number than I expressed in this article so I encourage you to go listen to the full episode, take notes, ask me questions so you can go into your next appointment ready to have a solid dialogue with your physician. 

_________________

Listen to the full episode on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. You can also watch this episode and much more on the Dr. Geo Youtube Channel.

Follow us on the platform of your choice: