With prostate cancer not being a lifestyle cancer (i.e. not caused by being overweight, eating cured meats, smoking, alcohol, etc., or at least, the obvious lifestyle issues are not responsible for them), it does mean that a significant number of healthy men get it. I spent 3 days on a general cancer ward during my treatment. Sorry this is a bit crude, but for many of the patients, you could see why they might have ended up there, frequently popping out for a cigarette, or looked like they've been drinking heavily for years, or massively overweight, etc. The three prostate cancer patients were all quite fit, me a cyclist, also a tennis player and I forget what the third did, but something sporty too. Sometime afterwards, I mentioned this to one of the nurses, and she said I'm far from the only person to comment on that. She asked if there were any testicular cancer patients in there at the time, and I said not that I knew of. She said it's the same with them, usually very healthy, and often around age 25. That's the difference between lifestyle cancers and those which are not. She also pointed out that most of those others who I might have guessed were older than me probably were younger.
Of course, even for many lifestyle cancers, lifestyle is only a contributory factor in some of the cases, often less than half. You are still at risk even if you lead a perfect life. Having had prostate cancer doesn't make us immune from other cancers, although it does mean that if you had early bladder or possibly kidney cancer, those would have been picked up in the associated prostate scans.
Edited by member 20 Oct 2024 at 20:16
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