For Every Man Above 40

Prostate cancer has become on the list of diseases that Americans give special importance to, due to its spread where it comes second after skin cancer, with an approximate death toll of 73000 man this year only in America, US news magazine published a full research and report about prostate cancer as a main subject for its 22^nd of May 2000 issue.

Statistics show that 1 of each 6 men will get this cancer, we can even say that every man will be affected by this cancer if they grow old enough where Anatomical studies indicate indicates that 80% of men in their 80 years of age had cancer cells in the prostate gland.

Frequent medical checkups to search for the cancer are one of the most methods to discover cancer in its early stages and cure it, where it is important to remember that cancer has no noticeable symptoms until spreading outside the prostate gland and reaching other parts of the body, the beginning symptoms can be bone pains due to the reach of cancer to the bone, those cases cannot be treated with the current medical abilities due to the late discovery of the disease.

One of the main factors that increases the chances of getting cancer is for an individual to carry the gene that helps developing the cancer, that’s why the possibility of developing cancer in people can multiply if one of the family members have been infected by cancer, at the same time we find other people that carry healthy genes but are subject to an increasing chance of getting cancer due to other factors, which can be food diet related.

This is where the American community for cancer and the national union of cancer as well as the American union of Urology advices people to start the necessary tests to discover prostate cancer by the age of 40 for each man that had a cancer case in their family, and 50 years old for all others.

Although there is no solid proof that doing a special blood test can discover prostate cancer (PSA, but there is no doubt that tests will help discover many cancer cases in their early stages.

A clinical study started in 1993 on 75000 men to answer this question. And in this participants were divided into two categories, one that does the test and another that does not, and the study is still going on.

Some initial studies indicate that there is a relation between the quality of diet and food and the chances of getting this cancer, and the first evidence is what was found by researchers that men who migrated from Japan to America has more chances of getting prostate cancer from 4 to 9 times more that regular, researcher relate that to the change of food diet and the increase of fat in American foods comparing to the Japanese.

There are 11 new studies confirming the relation between fatty food and prostate cancer, and there are also other new studies that confirm the positive role of vegetables, fruits and fibers in general in decreasing the chances of getting prostate cancer down to percentage of 41%.

Although we as doctors cannot know for sure the role of food in preventing prostate cancer, but is enough evidence that encourages following a healthy food diet, whether for protection from prostate cancer or other cancerous diseases as well as heart diseases…etc.