I guess whoever comes up with "the cause" of prostate cancer will win the $64 million dollar prize, but I'm inclined to guess there are multiple contributing factors rather than a single identifiable cause. If it was a simple answer, we'd know it by know.
Why are African Americans more smitten by the disease? Why are Hispanics less so, as are Asians? I'm none of those. I grew up poor, and there wasn't a whole lot of meat on the table, red or otherwise. After we were married, most of our meat came from my wife's parents, who raised Hereford steers, which were strictly grain fed, no additives ever. That continued for many years until Beth's Dad retired from farming. He lived to be 87 with nary a prostate problem or concern.
No one on my father's side or my mother's side has had PCa as far back as I've been able to trace. There has been breast cancer on my mother's side, although she herself lived to be 80 and never had it. My Dad had colon cancer, and that's about it for the cancer history in my family.
I've lived a very active life. I've been a runner and a bicyclist. I don't know how I could have avoided the prostate cancer. I feel as if it's a complicated equation. Maybe it's related to my sleep apnea, my baldness, my bad vision, my long third finger, the crooked toe on my right foot, my sometimes overcharged libido (in days past, that is), my college age work as a house painter, the little yellow squeeze bottles that we used to pick up behind the Ford dealer in the 50's and drank out of that had contained car wax. I don't know, and it probably wouldn't give me any comfort to find out.
Something's going to kill us all. The six o'clock news is chock full of remedies aimed at keeping us boomers alive and youthful forever, but eventually we're all going to die.
PCa wanted to kill me, but for the time being it's not going to. I chalk that up as a victory in the battle to stay alive. I guess something else will have a run at it eventually, and we'll see who wins next time.