Knowing about cancer and how it can be prevented or detected early is the first step in decreasing your risk of dying from this disease. Lifestyle is a very important contributing factor to your individual risk; genetics or family history and ethnicity can also influence risk. The types that most frequently affect men are skin, prostate, lung and colon cancers.

Risk Factors:

• Lung Cancer
• Smoking or chewing tobacco products
• Smoking marijuana
• Secondhand smoke
• Exposure to: asbestos, radon, uranium, arsenic or vinyl chloride
   
• Skin Cancer:
• Sunbathing or participating in outdoor sports without sunscreen
• Using tanning beds
• Fair skin, blonde or red hair
• Having a lot of moles
• Family history
   
• Colorectal Cancer:
• Family History
• Intestinal polyps
• Over 50 years of age
• Eating a lot of red meat or lunchmeat
• Sedentary lifestyle
• Overweight or Obese
• Using tobacco
• Daily alcohol consumption of >2 drinks per day
   
• Prostate Cancer:
• Over age 50
• African American
• Consume a lot of saturated fat foods
• Overweight
• Family History
• Visit the HAP page on Prostate Cancer
   
• Testicular Cancer:
  • There is no conclusive evidence detailing a specific set of risk factors for this rare cancer. More Information >>

Regular Cancer Screening:

HAP is committed to providing evidenced-based screening recommendations, for a list please visit the HAP page for our guidelines.

Cancer Prevention:

Food

The first step toward prevention is maintaining a healthy diet. A healthy diet that includes fruits and vegetables containing natural antioxidants may help decrease your risk for cancer. A nutritionally poor diet is a risk factor for cancer that you can avoid.

Activity

Regular physical activity is another step you can take in preventing cancer. Exercise strengthens your immune system, improves circulation and enhances digestion, all of which decrease cancer risk. Exercise also helps prevent obesity, another potential risk factor for cancer.

Screening

Visiting your personal care physician for an annual exam is important. Your PCP will recommend healthy lifestyle activities as well as age-specific health screenings. If cancer does develop, an annual check up will help discover the problem in its earliest stages, when treatment is most effective.

Avoiding other lifestyle behaviors that increase your risk including, obesity smoking, consuming excessive alcohol and overexposure to sun.

Treatment:

This will vary for each individual, based on the type of cancer and the recommendations of your oncology team.

Support:

We hear a lot of promotion for support groups regarding women’s cancers, you may be surprised to know there are several for men too. Locally, Gilda’s club of Metro Detroit has a special “men only” support group. Contact them at 248-577-0800 for more information.

The American Cancer Society offers the "Man to Man" program for prostate cancer survivors. Their "I Can Cope" program offers reliable information, peer support and coping help to patients and their families.

The American Institute for Cancer Research offers research-based nutritional guidelines for survivors.