Prostatitis

In a previous uncontrolled trial reviewed in the Townsend Letter, quercetin was found to relieve symptoms in a large proportion of patients with chronic bacterial prostatitis, chronic non-bacterial prostatitis, and prostatodynia. This preliminary report has now been followed up by a controlled trial. Thirty men with category IIIa or IIIb chronic pelvic pain syndrome (chronic nonbacterial prostatitis and prostatodynia; mean duration of symptoms, 11 years) were randomly assigned to receive, in double-blind fashion, quercetin (500mg twice daily) or placebo for one month. The NIH chronic prostatitis symptom score was used to grade symptoms and quality of life. In the placebo group, the mean NIH symptom score improved by 7.1%, compared with a 37.6% improvement in the quercetin group (p = 0.003). The proportion of patients experiencing at least a 25% improvement (the amount considered clinically meaningful) was 20% in the placebo group and 67% in the quercetin group (p = 0.001).

Comment: The results of this study suggest that supplementation with quercetin resulted in significant symptomatic improvement in men with chronic pelvic pain syndrome. It should be noted that two of the four authors of this study own stock in companies that would benefit from sales of the supplements used in the study. Therefore, it would be useful to see this study repeated by another research group.

Shoskes DA, et al. Quercetin in men with category III chronic prostatitis: a preliminary prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Urology 1999;54:960-963.

COPYRIGHT 2002 The Townsend Letter Group
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group