Transcript of
Black men and prostate cancer
HThe thing about prostate cancer
is that it's now the commonest male cancer.
It's taken over from lung cancer.
Because men are smoking less than they used to, lung cancer has fallen
and prostate cancer has overtaken it.
So probably somewhere between one in eight to one in ten men
will develop prostate cancer.
In February 2007...
..I found out....
..I was diagnosed with cancer.
The prostate is only in men. Women do not have a prostate.
It's just an organ that men have.
It's about the size of a walnut
and it's a tiny gland that sits underneath the bladder.
I didn't even know I had a prostate.
Its purpose is twofold.
One purpose is to help regulate the speed at which the urine passes through.
But the main function is that it produces a lot of the seminal fluid.
So it's a sexual organ as well as an organ of urinary control.
My whole life started to unreel
like in a cinema, you know.
It's strange. I just thought...
..cancer, death.
We know that if you're black,
black African or African American or African Caribbean...
If you're black, your rate of getting prostate cancer
is three times that compared to if you were white.
We don't know why, as yet, although there's lots of research going on.
(Darkus Howe) I had it diagnosed,
but what's frightening is that it was by accident.
That's frightening.
Because I thought, I would have been dead by now.
It's very uncommon under the age of 50.
And as you go to 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s,
the older you get, the more risk you have of getting prostate cancer.
The second thing is family history.
In other words, if you have someone in your family who's got prostate cancer,
say, a father or brother or whatever, then your risk is doubled.
If you've got two family members with prostate cancer,
your risk is quadrupled.
Then I discovered two things:
That my father died of it.
So did my grandfather.
We know that diet is very important.
So, for example, we know that if you're obese
you have a much greater risk of getting prostate cancer.
And things to reduce your intake of are salt and red meat.
I have muesli. I eat a little bit of fruit.
I don't overeat.
There is a blood test called the PSA blood test, Prostate-Specific Antigen.
Now, this is the blood test that
if the level of the PSA is over a certain threshold,
then the suspicion of prostate cancer arises.
And then, you then have to go on and get a biopsy.
It's now down to...
It doesn't exist anymore. It doesn't come up on the screen, at all.
The outlook for prostate cancer, if you detect it early enough, is good.
So that's why we're...
I'm very keen that men get themselves checked out for prostate cancer.
