Louisiana recently received a new title it may not want to incorporate into the state motto.
The Pelican State was noted for having the fourth-highest prostate cancer death rate and the sixth-highest incidence rate in the nation, according to data compiled by ZERO – The Project to End Prostate Cancer.
But Diptasri Mandal, associate professor of genetics at the LSU Health Sciences Center, said though the state’s rates are high, the rates of incidence and mortality are actually falling.
Skip Lockwood, ZERO president and CEO, said the high rate is the result of a combination of factors, including the large African-American population and the hefty obesity rate.
Lockwood said it’s not completely understood why African-American men have a higher incidence rate, but it’s believed to be associated with how their bodies metabolize testosterone.
Prostate cancer rates in black men are 60 percent higher than in white men, according to a ZERO news release.
“Add a difficult diet with a large African-American population and many men not making use of the doctor, and you end up with a negative outcome,” Lockwood said.
Zack Smith, director of radiation oncology/tumor registry for Baton Rouge General Pennington Cancer Center, added that
increasing age is a major factor in developing prostate cancer.
Smith said the fact that Louisiana has one of the oldest populations in the United States explains why the prostate cancer rate is so high.
“If you have a state with a lot of old men in it, chances are you’re going to have a lot of prostate cancer,” Smith said.
Smith said most older men will eventually develop prostate cancer, and he referenced a study that found prostate cancer in 90 percent of cadavers of 80- to 90-year-old men who had died of other causes.
Mandal agreed that age and race are major contributing factors for developing prostate
cancer. She said family history is also a risk, but it’s unclear if diet is related to the cancer’s development.
Studies have shown conflicting reports concerning the effect of diet, Mandal said.
Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer-related death in men, according to figures released by the American Cancer Society.
But early detection makes a significant difference, Lockwood said. When the disease is caught early and still confined inside the prostate, there’s a 99 percent five-year survival rate.
ZERO’s news release elaborated on that statistic and reported that when the disease is detected in a later stage, the five-year survival rate plummets to 29 percent.
While prostate cancer isn’t necessarily preventable, Lockwood and Smith said a healthy lifestyle is the best defense.
“A healthy body tends to resist disease and recover better,” Smith said.
 
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Contact Emily Herrington at [email protected]