An insidious risk factor for cardiovascular disease: benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTSs) have a considerably higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) than the general population in old age. Many hypotheses have been created to explain traditional clinical risk factors of CVD, including age, male gender, cigarette smoking, inheritance, high blood pressure (BP), obesity, elevated fasting plasma glucose, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, decreased physical activity and metabolic syndrome; or nontraditional risk factors such as oxidative stress, inflammation, vascular calcification, malnutrition, homocysteine and genetic variation. Although these risk factors are important in CVD pathophysiology and clinical presentation, there is still no single theory sufficient to provide an adequate explanation for all the properties of CVD. We speculate that by causing nocturia-induced sleep disturbances, BP variability, increased sympathetic activity, non-dipping BP variations; BPH may be an insidious risk factor for CVD. Benign prostate hyperplasia may be related to increased BP, coronary ischemic hearth disease or other cardiovascular pathologic conditions. This attention on BPH may produce a new approach to the diagnosis and treatment of CVD. Although the underlying mechanisms are still exactly unclear, further prospective randomized controlled studies are needed to identify if patients with BPH/LUTS is higher risk for CVD.