Bravo TV and The Actual Housewives of Atlanta star Dwight Eubanks introduced he was recognized with prostate most cancers in April 2025, elevating consciousness of an necessary difficulty: Black males have a better incidence of prostate most cancers and prostate most cancers mortality, in accordance with knowledge from the World Journal of Males’s Well being.
Submit-diagnosis, Eubanks is advocating for Black males to get screened and championing consciousness by way of an ambassadorship with ZERO Prostate Most cancers.
What are the probabilities?
“I found it by chance.” Eubanks says. “We hosted a well being honest at my church in January, and I simply occurred to go over and get a PSA accomplished. And it got here again excessive, elevated.”
Eubanks says he was shocked as a result of he had regularly visited the physician, and his physician by no means talked about an elevated PSA (prostate-specific antigen). Eubanks’ story is frequent and highlights the probability of males being recognized with prostate most cancers.
Analysis reveals that one in eight males will get prostate most cancers, and Jude Emokpare, a doctor and oncology hospitalist, confirms the info. He sees prostate most cancers sufferers and is a part of an advocacy group known as The Strada Basis, which helps promote prostate most cancers screening for Black males.
“The present numbers that we work with estimate about one in eight males might be recognized with prostate most cancers of their lifetime, and in Black males, it’s truly one in six,” Emokpare says.
“Sadly, for Black males, the chances are stacked in opposition to us. We are inclined to have a better danger of a number of sorts of illnesses, together with cancers,” he explains. “Our genetic make-up alone is an element that you simply don’t have management over.”
Emokpare says socioeconomic standing can also be a think about why extra Black males get prostate most cancers. In the event that they reside in an under-resourced neighborhood, their entry to well being care companies is proscribed. They’re both not screened in any respect or screened late within the illness course of.
“There’s plenty of males… of their 50s and 60s who haven’t even had a PSA check accomplished,” Emokpare says.
Eubanks says it’s important for Black males to go to the physician and bear screenings. “It’s actually essential… significantly within the African American neighborhood,” he says.
When do you have to get screened for prostate most cancers?
Getting screened for prostate most cancers might allow you to catch it early. The five-year survival price for localized prostate most cancers that hasn’t unfold past the prostate is 99%, in accordance with WebMD. Common PSA blood assessments mixed with digital rectal exams are a standard screening methodology.
“Males ought to get screened no less than every year, and the suggestions fluctuate,” Emokpare says. “Usually, we are saying each man 50 years outdated and above ought to get screened. However we get extra particular for [high-risk] people, and we are saying, ‘You begin screening as early as 40 years.’”
In accordance with the American Most cancers Society, males must be screened beginning at age 50 in the event that they’re of common danger and anticipated to reside no less than one other 10 years. In the event that they’re Black or have a first-degree relative (father or brother, for instance) who was recognized with prostate most cancers at an early age (youthful than 65), they need to begin screenings at 45.
If a person has a couple of first-degree relative who had prostate most cancers at an early age, he must be screened yearly beginning at age 40.
decrease your danger for prostate most cancers
Though prostate most cancers can’t be prevented for positive, in accordance with the American Most cancers Society, males can take motion to decrease their danger, together with:
- Sustaining a wholesome weight
- Being bodily lively
- Sustaining a nutritious diet together with quite a lot of vegetables and fruit and complete grains whereas avoiding or limiting crimson and processed meats, sugar-sweetened drinks and extremely processed meals
Emokpare additionally recommends males give up smoking. “We counsel folks loads concerning the dangers of tobacco use,” he says. “It will increase your danger of so many issues: coronary heart illness, strokes and several other [types] of most cancers.”
Eubanks says he encourages males, particularly Black males, to get screened and get details about prostate most cancers. “The stigma of getting to go up the rectum to examine the prostate—these days are over with,” he says. “It’s a easy course of, a matter of simply giving blood and getting your outcomes.”
Photograph by angellodeco/Shutterstock.
