Lucy, maybe the confusion is because what one researcher calls "high" is different from what another calls "high". In the article below, high is only relative to food sources. On the other hand, the level of Vitamin A that was recently in the news as possible health risk is from high dose vitamins, so it's probably out of the ball park compared to the "high" Vit A in food. I wanted to give this as a link, but I couldn't get it right. So here's the whole thing from PubMed. Is it what you were referring to? Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Feb;85(2):497-503. Links Vitamin A, retinol, and carotenoids and the risk of gastric cancer: a prospective cohort study.Larsson SC, Bergkvist L, Naslund I, Rutegard J, Wolk A. Division of Nutritional Epidemiology, The National Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. susanna.larsson@ki.se BACKGROUND: Vitamin A may influence gastric carcinogenesis through its essential role in controlling cell proliferation and differentiation. However, epidemiologic studies of vitamin A, retinol (preformed vitamin A), and provitamin A carotenoids in relation to the risk of gastric cancer have documented inconsistent results. OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study was to examine the associations between intakes of vitamin A, retinol, and specific carotenoids and the risk of gastric cancer in a prospective population-based cohort study of Swedish adults. DESIGN: The study cohort consisted of 82 002 Swedish adults aged 45-83 y who had completed a food-frequency questionnaire in 1997. The participants were followed through June 2005. RESULTS: During a mean 7.2-y follow-up, 139 incident cases of gastric cancer were diagnosed. High intakes of vitamin A and retinol from foods only (dietary intake) and from foods and supplements combined (total intake) and of dietary alpha-carotene and beta-carotene were associated with a lower risk of gastric cancer. The multivariate relative risks for the highest versus lowest quartiles of intake were 0.53 (95% CI: 0.32, 0.89; P for trend = 0.02) for total vitamin A, 0.56 (95% CI: 0.33, 0.95; P for trend = 0.05) for total retinol, 0.50 (95% CI: 0.30, 0.83; P for trend = 0.03) for alpha-carotene, and 0.55 (95% CI: 0.32, 0.94; P for trend = 0.07) for beta-carotene. No significant associations were found for beta-cryptoxanthin, lutein and zeaxanthin, or lycopene intake. CONCLUSION: High intakes of vitamin A, retinol, and provitamin A carotenoids may reduce the risk of gastric cancer.

There don't seem to be consistently effective herbal remedies for chronic prostatitis, but quercetin (a compound found in red wine, onions and some teas) has shown some positive effect, at least in limited trials. Silymarin (found in milk thistle) is being studied in prostate cancer, but I don't see anything on PubMed about it being used for prostatitis. Most cases of chronic prostatitis never have a specific cause identified - some are related to chronic bacterial infection, but lots of the time no infection can be found.

By "prostate problems" do you mean benign enlargement of the gland (prostatic hyperplasia)? Saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) is probably the best known and studied herb in this regard, and has shown some effectiveness in helping urinary symptoms (prevention of benign prostatic hyperplasia by intake of this herb is less well-characterized, as far as I know). There is also preliminary evidence that lycopene (found in tomatoes) may prevent as well as treat prostate cancer. More here. In the U.S., problems with standardization of herbal medicines mean that you can't be sure that a given supplement contains significant active ingredients - and this has been shown to be the case for saw palmetto.

Hi Quirk, Altho DH has 3 Drs and doesnt go 90 days without seeing one or the other, he s OK..He did tell SS1 he may have to go on disability and would find out soon..SS1 made no further inquiries, so I m guessing he just doesnt care...SS2 is much closer to DH, but also younger(teenager)so I guess I ll just encourage DH to tell him as much as he thinks he can process at his age...As for the mother, information blackout!!! When DH was in critical condition, and I called son to hospital, Ex went and called ALL her ex in laws....They were furious with me for not calling them, but to tell you the truth, they never entered my mind, I was too worried...After surgery, when DH found out they had been called, he was furious, he has been estranged from them for years..But EX made it HER business to call them, sigh, but thats another story, LOL....The best Dotz