Men with Diabetes Have More Frequent Urinary Symptoms

It’s been show before that men with diabetes are more likely to have bothersome urinary symptoms – these are usually irritative symptoms, such as frequent urination and nighttime urination. Michigan and Mayo Clinic researchers conducted a study to see if these were due to enlargement of the prostate (benign prostatic hypertrophy, or BPH) in these patients. They published their findings in the journal Diabetes Care.

Almost 2,500 white and black men aged 40 to 79 were enrolled. Their average age was 56, and 7% of them had diabetes. The presence of BPH was assessed by prostate volume and peak urine flow rate. Prostate specific antigen ( PSA) levels were also evaluated.

None of the men had prostate cancer. Irritative lower urinary tract symptoms, especially urinating at night, were more common in diabetic patients. While this association was seen in both white and black men, they were more likely to occur in black diabetics. And there was no indication that BPH was more frequent in the diabetic subjects, suggesting that the irritative urinary symptoms were related to the diabetic condition – the researchers say they may be related to “the dynamic components of lower urinary tract function”. But it’s not clear to me what this actually means. Could an increased number of sugar molecules in some diabetic’s urine be responsible?