A doctor is advising patients to hit the bottle in a bid to beat prostate problems.

However the sauce that he wants them to have is tomato ketchup.

Dr Anand has been recommending that men increase their intake of lycopene, a substance found in tomatoes which is believed to help prevent prostate cancer and other forms of the disease.

It is said to be more easily absorbed by the body when it is processed into a sauce, paste, juice or ketchup.

Dr Anand, who runs the Elmfield Health Group, in Newcastle, says many men who have prostate trouble can feel the benefit within weeks of the increase.

He said: "I believe if GPs were to introduce complementary and non-drug therapy to patients alongside conventional treatments it would cut their budgets by a third easily."

One of those to benefit was Thomas Armstrong, 59, who suffers from an enlarged prostate - a common problem in older men which can be a symptom of cancer.

He used to have to get up to go to the toilet half a dozen times a night until Dr Anand recommended that he tried lycopene supplements.

Within weeks the problem stopped.

Retired Metro worker, Mr Armstrong, of Gosforth, Newcastle, said: "I've been taking the tablets for six months now and I feel like a new man."

More than 17,000 men in the UK are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year, and disease causes 10,000 deaths.

Dr David Yeung, director of corporate nutrition, for Heinz tomato ketchup, said: "More than 70 studies, conducted in the past few years by some of the world's leading food scientists, consistently show an inverse relationship between lycopene intake and cancer risk."

But Professor Hing Leung, senior lecturer and urologist at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital, was not convinced.

"I know many people believe in the benefits of lycopene, but I know some of my patients who have taken supple ments for prostate problems and have come out in nasty rashes," he said.