It makes the fluid
Between a fifth and a third of semen is prostatic fluid — milky, slightly alkaline, carrying zinc, citrate and enzymes. The alkalinity matters: it buffers the acidity of the vagina long enough for sperm to survive the trip.
The prostate gland is a walnut-sized gland that sits under the bladder and wraps around the urethra, and it makes most of the fluid in semen. Most men in Pakistan first hear the word from a doctor, in English, in a sentence they did not entirely follow — so here it is in Urdu first, and then taken apart properly.
In Urdu the prostate is پروسٹیٹ غدود — prostate ghadood. The word غدود (ghadood) means gland, and older men and Hakeems will often say مردانہ غدود (mardana ghadood), the male gland, or مثانے کے غدود (masane ke ghadood), the bladder gland — which is anatomically loose but tells you exactly where it is.
Two more words worth having, because your doctor will use them. مثانہ (masana) is the bladder. پیشاب کی نالی (peshab ki nali) is the urethra, the tube the urine travels down. Almost everything on this page is a story about those three things and how they are arranged.
When a doctor says the prostate is enlarged, the Urdu is پروسٹیٹ کا بڑھ جانا — prostate ka barh jana. He does not mean cancer. He means the gland has grown, which after forty it does in most men.
Between a fifth and a third of semen is prostatic fluid — milky, slightly alkaline, carrying zinc, citrate and enzymes. The alkalinity matters: it buffers the acidity of the vagina long enough for sperm to survive the trip.
Prostate-specific antigen — the PSA your doctor measures in blood — is an enzyme the gland makes to stop semen from setting solid. It is in the bloodstream only as a leak, which is why the level rises when the gland is inflamed, enlarged or diseased.
Smooth muscle in the gland contracts during ejaculation and closes the bladder neck so semen goes forward rather than backward. That same muscle is what tightens up in stress and what alpha blockers relax.
Under the bladder. Behind the pubic bone. In front of the rectum, which is why a doctor can feel it with a finger and why that examination, undignified as it is, remains the fastest check available.
And wrapped around the urethra. That is the design flaw. Every other gland in the body can grow without consequence because nothing important runs through it. The prostate has the urine outflow running straight through its middle, so any growth is growth into the pipe.
It is roughly walnut-sized at twenty — about 20 grams. It grows through the thirties and forties and keeps going. A man of seventy may be carrying 40 grams or more; the age-by-age figures are here.
The gland is not uniform. It has three distinct zones, and they behave so differently that knowing which one is involved tells you what is going on.
A small collar of tissue immediately around the urethra. This is where benign enlargement happens, essentially always. Because it is wrapped directly around the tube, a few grams of growth here obstructs more than a large lump anywhere else — which is why prostate size and symptom severity correlate so poorly.
The bulk of the gland, sitting at the back against the rectum. Around 70 to 80 per cent of prostate cancers start here. It is furthest from the urethra, so a tumour can grow for years without touching your urine flow at all. That is the entire argument for PSA testing: the dangerous zone is the silent one.
Sits behind the transition zone and carries the ejaculatory ducts through to the urethra. Rarely the site of anything, benign or otherwise.
The dangerous zone is the silent one, so waiting for a symptom is waiting for the wrong signal. A PSA test costs between Rs 1,050 and Rs 3,300 at labs here. Over fifty and never had one, get it done — not because of anything on this page, but because the result changes what your symptoms mean.
We make NixMen, a food supplement for men whose transition zone has been doing what transition zones do. It works on the tone of that smooth muscle valve — not on the size of the gland around it. The full label with every milligram is on the ingredients page.
It is not a treatment for anything in the peripheral zone. Nothing on a shelf is. That is what the PSA test and a urologist are for.
Thirty capsules, one month, Rs 10,900
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Thirty capsules, one month, Rs 10,900. Free delivery all over Pakistan, cash on delivery.
پروسٹیٹ غدود — prostate ghadood. Also called مردانہ غدود (mardana ghadood) or مثانے کے غدود. It is a walnut-sized gland under the bladder that makes most of the fluid in semen.
Three jobs. It makes 20 to 30 per cent of semen, it produces PSA to keep that semen liquid, and its smooth muscle closes the bladder neck during ejaculation so semen goes forward instead of back into the bladder.
Directly beneath the bladder, behind the pubic bone, in front of the rectum, and wrapped around the urethra. The last part is why it causes urinary trouble when it grows.
Three. Transition, peripheral and central. Benign enlargement comes from the transition zone; most cancers start in the peripheral zone.
Yes. It is removed entirely in prostate cancer surgery and men live normally afterwards. Fertility ends, because the fluid the gland makes is a necessary part of semen.
There are the Skene’s glands, sometimes called the female prostate, which sit near the urethra and share some tissue characteristics. They do not do the same job and they do not cause the problems this site is about.