Prostate
Health
Menstuff® has compiled information on Prostate Health.
Prostate Cancer Awareness Month runs throughout September, and
Prostate Cancer Awareness Week runs September 15-21, 2008. Newsbytes
features the latest prostate cancer news, updated weekly.
A husband, father, son, brother, grandfather, friend
dies
every 17 minutes of every day from Prostate Cancer
Are you a male 40-75
or over 35 and African American
or your father or brother had Prostate Cancer?
Get tested! PSA and DRE*
Someone you know may be affected.
One in every six men will get prostate cancer.
There will be over 2.8 million cases of prostate disease reported
in 2008.
For over 220,900 men, it will be prostate cancer.
Over 28,900 will die because
they didn't get an examination soon enough.
Don't let it be said, "He was too embarrassed or afriad to get
tested."
We cannot rest until we win the battle against Prostate
Cancer.
We'll Send You an Annual
Checkup Reminder
Click on covers for more specific
information.
Best Reason
to Fight for More Research
About Prostate Cancer - Did You
Know?
The Prostate - The Short
Version
The Prostate - The Long
Version:
Prostate Enlargement (Benign
Prostatic Hypertrophy)
Prostate Cancer
Impotency
10 Steps to a healthier life and reduced risk of
most cancers
Prostate Cancer Awareness Week Sep 17-23,
2006
Free Prostate Screenings during
Prostate Cancer Awareness Week
Free Prostate Cancer Treatment for
Some Men in California
Screen Together - Live
Together
Similarity to Breast Cancer
Deaths Per Research Dollar
Spent
Prostate Canceer Awareness Pin
Goodbye Prostate Cancer Awareness
Stamp
Kaiser Permanente Recommends Against
Prostate Screenings
Viagra news coverage concerning discrimination
in insurance payments
Alternative
Treatment and Complementary Medicine
Prostate
Cancer Prevention
Resources:
For
incontinence
Prostate - Books,
Newsbytes, Links
Impotency - Books,
Information, Links
Merchandising
Materials
Article
Videos
Slide
Guide
Booklet
Best
Reason to Fight for More Research
The major reason all of these major
organizations that deal with cancer are not recommending testing is
because, unlike breast cancer, they say they haven't found anything
that improves or extends a man's life if he gets prostate cancer so,
basically, just let it grow. With almost five-times more
research spending per death, plus untold millions on awareness,
breast cancer cures are seeing great results. At the rate men bought
Viagra, you've got to believe they would spend a lot if there was
something that could stop prostate cancer without becoming impotent
or incontinent. The difference is that women have raised the banners.
Have spend their personal time and money to make things happen, have
purhcased millions of Breast Cancer Awareness Stamps, have made a
difference. Unlike women, few men have done any of those things, and
while the U.S. Postal Service did creat a Prostate Cancer Awareness
stamp, over 50 million of the 78 million stamps sit un-purchased.
Will anyone wake up before you get prostate cancer to find a way that
helps men live out those final years happier and healthier? Will
you?
Note: Spending in 1997 on research looked something like this:
Breast Cancer $12,800/death, prostate cancer $2,700/death.)
About Prostate Cancer - Did You
Know?
More than 220,900 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in the
USA this year, and more than 28,900 will die of the disease this
year. Because early prostate cancer is seldom signaled by any
symptoms, detection is extremely difficult without testing. Prostate
cancer:
- is the single most common form of solid tumor in humans
- is newly diagnosed every 2.6 minutes
- is present in more than 9 million men
- kills one man every 13 minutes
- afflicts one in six men in their lifetime
- is second only to lung cancer in annual cancer deaths of U.S.
men
- is high risk for black men – they have incidence and
mortality rates as much as 50% higher than other racial or ethnic
groups
- strikes as many men (and causes almost as many deaths
annually) as breast cancer does in women, but lacks the national
awareness and research funding breast cancer currently
receives
- is nearly 100 percent survivable if detected early
- annual testing (PSA and DRE) is recommended for all men 40+
years old (and men at greater risk beginning at 35)
10 Steps to a healthier life and reduced risk of
most cancers
1. Eat more cabbage-family vegetables - especially colorectal,
stomach and respiratory cancers.
2. Add more high-fiber foods - particularly colon cancer. This
includes whole grains, fruits and vegetables including peaches,
strawberries, potatoes, spinach, tomatoes, wheat and bran cereals,
rice, popcorn, whole-wheat bread.
3. Choose foods with Vitamin A. Cancers of the esophagus, larynx
and lung. Fresh foods with beta-carotene like carrots, peaches,
apricots, squash and broccoli are the best source, not vitamin
pills.
4. Do the same for Vitamin C. This could help prevent against
cancers of the esophagus and stomach. Grapefruit, cantaloupe,
oranges, strawberries, red and green peppers, broccoli, tomatoes.
5. Add weight control. Obesity is linked to cancers of the uterus,
gallbladder, breast and colon. Exercise and lower calorie intake help
you avoid gaining a lot of weight. Walking is ideal exercise for most
people and primes you for other sports.
6. Trim fat from your diet. A high-fat diet increases your risk of
colon, prostate and breast cancer (3% of men). Fat-loaded calories
mean a weight gain for you, especially if you don't exercise. Cut
overall fat intake by eating lean meat, fish, skinned poultry,
low-fat dairy products. Avoid pastry, candies.
7. Subtract salt-cured, smoked, nitrite-cured foods. Cancers of
the esophagus and stomach are common in countries where these foods
are eaten in large quantities. Choose bacon, ham, hot dogs or
salt-cured fish only occasionally, if you like them allot.
8. Stop cigarette smoking. It is the biggest cancer risk factor of
all - the main cause of lung cancer and 30% of all cancers. Smoking
at home means more respiratory and allergic ailments for kids.
Chewing tobaccos are harmful, too, as risks for mouth and throat
cancers.
9. Go easy on alcohol. If you drink allot, your risk of liver
cancer increases. Smoking and drinking alcohol greatly increases risk
of cancers of the mouth, throat, larynx and esophagus.
10. Respect the sun's rays. Too much sun causes skin cancer and
other damage to your skin. Protect yourself with sunscreen - at least
#15, wear long sleeves and a hat, especially during midday hours
(11AM-3PM). Don't use indoor sun lamps, tanning parlors or pills. If
you see changes in a mole or a sore that does not heal, see your
physician. Other risk factors: excessive X rays, estrogen's and
work-related exposures to harmful chemicals and fibers like asbestos
are potential risks.
Similarity to Breast Cancer
With breast cancer, we encourage women to examine their own breasts,
not as a substitute for a doctor doing this exam, but as an interim
measure. If a woman feels a breast lump between her regular
examinations, then she at least has given her doctor a leg up in
treating her disease.
The prostate also can be examined by the patient or his partner at
six-month intervals in between the regular yearly exam. If indeed you
feel a lump, you then have a six-month jump on treatment. This is not
talked about a lot because many people have trouble dealing with
these parts of the body.
Prostate Self-Exam
It's easy for a man to feel his own prostate gland. It's a
walnut-sized organ at the base of the bladder. It can be felt with
the tip of a finger inserted into the rectum. Its texture and
firmness should be similar to that of the flesh between your thumb
and the rest of the hand when you make a tight fist. If you feel
anything that is as firm as the knuckle, then that needs to be
brought to a physician's attention.
How you reach the prostate, of course, is up to you. Some men may
do the exam in the shower, where soap can be used as a lubricant.
This can be a little tricky, because you need to get the palm surface
of your finger in contact with the prostate, although the fingernail
surface can be used for a cursory examination. You may feel more
comfortable if you wear a thin latex glove.
Self-Exam With Partner
Occasionally, you see hospitals welcoming husbands and boyfriends
into their breast self-examination classes. The idea is that perhaps
the woman is more likely to get her breast examined if her partner is
doing it. The same goes here.
It's not difficult to teach your partner how to examine your
prostate gland. Aesthetics aside, this is something every individual
couple has to decide if they want to do.
Many men can tell when their prostate is being touched because
it's very sensitive. If you're having someone else do it, you'll know
immediately when they reach paydirt. If you're doing it yourself, it
will also be obvious.
Most folks are surprised by how deep they have to reach. You'd
have to have long fingers, indeed, to reach completely to the far end
of the prostate gland, but in medicine we are content to touch as
much of the surface as possible.
As with breast self-examination, you want to cover all surfaces,
and you should be consistent in how you approach it. Use a sweeping
motion of the finger on one side, and then switch to the other side,
to make sure that you cover as much of the surface as possible.
Patient Feedback
If you're doing this on someone else, the man can tell you when
you've touched the prostate. At that point, feel for the rounded
shape and the borders of the prostate, which, as I've mentioned,
shouldn't be much larger than a walnut. If it is larger, the man
could have enlargement of the prostate gland, which should be brought
to a doctor's attention.
Once you establish the outside borders, then make sure your finger
touches as much of the in-between tissue as possible. The prostate
gland overall is fairly firm, as I mentioned, and you are feeling for
any hardness or inconsistency in texture. If any part of it feels
harder, bring it to a doctor's attention. If you're not sure, or you
have any other questions, mention to your physician that you are
doing self-examination or partner examination, and you want to
confirm the results.
Remember, this is not to be done as a substitute for a exam by a
physician. Do the self-exam at the six-month interval between your
annual exams.
"Viagra news coverage concerning discrimination
in insurance payments."
In the investigation of insurance payments for Viagra versus birth
control, are the media in your area also looking at the gender
discrimination of HMO’s and insurance companies in two
additional areas:
1. Covering tests for women for breast cancer and not covering
tests for men for prostate cancer. FACT: Almost twice as many
men are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year versus women
diagnosed with breast cancer. In addition, virtually as many men die
of prostate cancer as women who die of breast cancer, and there is no
treatment for prostate cancer to date that improves a man’s
life.
2. Covering tests for girls for breast cancer and not covering
tests for boys for testicular cancer. FACT: 7,200 boys 15-34
will be diagnosed and 350 will die this year from the disease, much
greater than girls/women in that age group dying of breast
cancer.
Also, a review of the disparage between the amount spent for
research and awareness campaigns on the above should be of great
interest. The National Cancer Institute estimates that they will
spend $332.9 million on breast cancer research this year while
spending $74.0 million on the study of prostate cancer and $0 on
testicular cancer. Prostate cancer receives the least amount of
funding per patient of all major cancers. Source: American Foundation
for Urologic Disease.
The National Cancer Institute also reported that during the period
1950-1991, women's rate of death from breast cancer increased 2%
while men's rate of death from prostate cancer increased 25%. Until
the last few years, you never heard anything about prostate cancer.
Even today, it's not a high priority on health programs or the news.
There's no postage stamp or brochures at the post office. (The second
Breast Cancer postage stamp will soon be issued to raise awareness of
breast cancer and to fund additional research.) There’s no
special research or funding organizations for prostate cancer, no
national prevention month, week or even day.
This is not to say that everything that is being done to find a
cure for breast cancer should not be done. However, where do
men’s health issues fit in in your local news analysis and
reporting? What about the fact that of the 15 leading causes of
death, men lead in every single category.
If you’re interested, I’ve included some additional
information on the subject which can be verified with a simple call
to The National Cancer Institute regarding the facts on new
diagnosis, death and research spending. Calls to HMOs, health
insurance carries, etc. will verify the differences in coverage.
19th Annual Prostate Cancer
Awareness Week:
A National Education, Service and Research program
September 17-23, 2007
This program has become the nation's largest cancer screening
program having attracted over 3 million participants. The first year
of the program (1989), there were fewer than 100 screening centers in
the United States. Today, this number has increased to several
hundred locations providing free or low-cost prostate cancer
screening with digital rectal examination (DRE) and prostate-specific
antigen (PSA) testing.
It’s difficult to come to terms with prostate cancer. Fear of
openly discussing the disease; complex treatment decisions; painful
side effects - survivors are often left feeling frustrated and
powerless. Too often, men face a diagnosis of prostate cancer
privately, searching for reliable treatments while hoping for the
best. Meanwhile, the disease cuts a devastating path through the
lives of hundreds of thousands of men and their families every year.
Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed non-skin cancer in the
U.S. And is the second leading cause of cancer death (after lung
cancer). It affects one out of every five men. A new case is
diagnosed every three minutes. If a close relative has prostate
cancer, a man’s risk for the disease more than doubles. With two
relatives with the disease, his risk increases fivefold. With three
relatives, his risk is nearly 100%. In recent years following public
activism by AIDS and breast cancer advocates, mortality due to those
diseases dropped. But the number of deaths due to prostate cancer
will kill 28,900 men this year and more than double the number of
deaths due to aids. Support for prostate cancer research lags far
behind funding for other diseases.
In 1997, spending on research for
every death from the disease looked something like this:
- Breast Cancer - $12,800 per death
- Prostate cancer - $2,700 per death
- AIDS - $47,000 per death
The scarcity of funding for prostate cancer research creates a
vicious cycle. Young and established researchers are drawn to more
profitable avenues of investigation; private enterprise views the
field as too risky for investment; and ideas that might lead to a
cure are conceived but never completed.
Source: CapCure www.capcure.org
This public awareness and education program was conceived and
instituted by the Prostate Cancer Education Council (PCEC) which
represents urology, oncology, patient advocacy, minorities, clinical
and behavioral research. Because of the alarming percentage of men
presenting advanced, incurable prostate cancer, the PCED was formed
in 1988 to promote awareness, screening and early detection of
prostate cancer.
General Norman Schwartzkopf has served as national PCAW chairman
since 1994 and in 1996 actor Danny Glover joined as co-chairman in
order to help recruit African American men, who have the highest risk
of prostate cancer in the world. In 2000, Arnold Palmer has added his
name to the ranks of men asking you to get a prostate exam. Over
220,900 men will be diagnosed this year and 28,900 will die because
they didn't catch it soon enough. www.pcaw.com
Or
www.pcaw.org
Free Prostate Screenings during
Prostate Cancer Awareness Week
The American Foundation for Urologic Disease offers free or low-cost
tests for early detection at over 300 sites across the country
September 17-23, 2007. Appointments are limited and available on a
first come, first serve basis. To schedule an exam at the nearest
location or to become a new PCAW testing site, call anytime
during September at 800.822.5277 or go to their website which shows
locations and phone numbers throughout the U.S. www.pcaw.com
The exams consist of a digital rectal exam (DRE) and a prostate
specific antigen (PSA) blood test, similar to a baseline mammogram
for women, each of which takes about a minute to perform. The
combination of these two methods is the most effective procedure for
detecting prostate cancer at an early and potentially curable stage.
Don’t die of embarrassment. Schedule an appointment for a
screening with your local health care provider.
Screen Together - Live Together
Screen Together - Live Together
The pink and blue ribbon on our home page is the new symbol
originating from the Healing Choices, Bridging Communities 2000
conference at the University of California at San Francisco November
18, 2000. It was the first breast and prostate cancer forum
integrating Western Medicine with the Healing Traditions from many
cultures. It encourages women and men to screen together, women for
breast cancer, men for prostate cancer. This comes from the knowledge
that many of those who die of these cancer's are married or have
spouses and that, since men are less likely to get screened, when
their cancer is detected, it is usually at a more advanced stage.
Every women is at risk for breast cancer and every man is at risk for
prostate cancer. The best way to protect yourself against it is to
find it early. Schedule an annual exam the same time your wife
schedules her mammogram. And enjoy many move years living
together.
Prostate Cancer Awareness Pins
Want to help raise awareness about prostate cancer? There are now
green enamel pins in the shape of ribbons (borrowed from the pink
AIDS awareness pins) available for $3 from the American Foundation
for Urological Disease, 1.800.828.7866 or 410.468.1800. Wear the pin
and when people ask what it’s for, you can explain the need for
early detection and more research funds to find a cure for prostate
cancer. Especially beneficial at Lion's or Elk's Lodge meetings,
Veterans of Foriegn Wars, even the Chamber of Commerce. Don't lose a
friend because you were too embarrassed to talk about it!
Goodbye Prostate Cancer Awareness
Stamp
To help raise awareness about prostate cancer and its often
devastating effect on the health of many men in America, the U.S.
Postal Service issued a commemorative postage stamp. "We believe this
stamp will go a long way in helping spread the word among men young
and old about how important it is for them to discuss this deadly
disease with their healthcare provider," said Dr. Virginia Noelke,
professor of history at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas,
and chair of the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee. However, the
stamp was emoved from the Postal Service catalog September 30, 2001.
(See related story.)
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in
men (after lung cancer) and, excluding skin cancer, is the most
common cancer in American men. Early prostate cancer often does not
cause symptoms.
Designed by Michael Cronan of San Francisco, Calif., the Prostate
Cancer Awareness stamp design incorporates the male symbol. The words
"Prostate Cancer Awareness" are stacked at the top of the vertically
formatted stamp, "USA 33" appears turned 90 degrees counterclockwise
in the bottom-left corner, and stacked in a box positioned in the
bottom-right corner of the design are the words "Annual Checkups and
Tests."
While the Postal Service does not endorse any particular testing
method, the stamp encouraged men who schedule annual physicals or
checkups to discuss testing options with their healthcare
provider.
For more information on stamps, visit the Postal Service Web site
at www.usps.com
and click "Stamps." To order stamps or stamp products, go directly to
www.stampsonline.com
Technical Details: Issue: Prostate Cancer Awareness; Item Number:
448200; Denomination & Type of Issue: 33-cent Commemorative;
Stamps per Pane/Coil: 20; Print Quantity: 78.1 million stamps; Gum
Type: Self-adhesive.
Kaiser Permanente Recommends Against
Prostate Screenings
Let Kaiser speak for themselves. Form 97282 reads: Recommendations
based on the latest medical research:
- Under Age 50: We do not recommend screening because
prostate cancer is very rare in younger men.
- Age 50 to 70: We recommend that men consider the risks
and benefits of PSA testing before deciding to be tested. * See
below for information to consider.
- Over Age 70: We do not recommend screening becauses most
prostate cancers which lead to death occur before age 70. Men who
develop prostate cancer over age 70 will most likely die of
another disease or natural causes.
* The Reasons Kaiser gives for not having a PSA test:
- The PSA test is not 100% accurate. A man can have a
positive PSA test even though he does not have prostate cancer,
which can cause unnecessary worry and more tests.
- Research is ongoing to determine if early detection and
treatment of prostate cancer prolong life. Studies that compared
men who had surgery, radiation treatment or were just observed
(with no treatment) found no differences in the number of men
alive in each group 10 years later. In other words, men who were
not treated lived as long (and as happily?) as those who were
treated.
- Surgical and radiation treatments for prostate cancer have
risks. Men who choose surgery have a 30 to 90% risk of becoming
impotent (unable to have an erection) and a 15 to 40% risk of
becoming incontinent (unable to control urine). Radiation
treatment has a 25 to 40% risk of impotence and a 1 to 4% risk of
incontinence.
- Many other expert organizations like the U.S. Preventive
Services Task Force, the National Cancer Institute and the
Canadian Task Force on Periodic Health Exams do not recommend
PSA testing. Althought the American Cancer Society recomends
prostate cancer screening and wants to increase public awaerness,
the more frequent testing that they recommend has not been shown
to prevent prostate cancer deaths. (Actually, the American Cancer
Society no longer recommends testing, either.)
* * *
The 1990 Unofficial Census reported more than 20.5 million Americans
wear diapers.11 million of them adults.
Approximately 90% of adults can be treated or cured of incontinence
but haven't sought professional help.
Disclaimer - Information is designed for
educational purposes only and is not engaged in rendering medical
advice or professional services. Any medical decisions should be made
in conjunction with your physician. We will not be liable for any
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For comments, reply to: prostateissues@pcaw.org
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