Several Sobering Facts

All Men

* An estimated 184,500 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed in 1998.

* An estimated 2.5 million men--at least--or one-third of all men with diabetes, don’t even know they have the disease.

* As many as 60% of men older than 50 with diabetes suffer from impotence.

* Despite advances in medical technology and research, the life expectancy of men continues to be an average of seven years less than women.

* Nearly 120,000 men ages 25 to 64 died from heart disease or stroke in 1995.

* The death rate of men from prostate cancer has increased by 23% since 1973.

* Men represent 84% of all AIDS cases in the United States.

* American men ages 45 to 64 have an estimated 218,000 heart attacks a year; women in the same age group have 74,000 heart attacks annually.

* Three times as many men as women suffer heart attacks before age 65.

* 27% of men will die within one year after having a heart attack.

* In 1997, the bulk of government funding for breast cancer research was about $332 million; for prostate cancer, $82.3 million.

* The five-year survival rate for men with testicular cancer is 95%.

* In the United States alone, one in five men will develop prostate cancer in their lifetime.

* An estimated 39,200 men will die of prostate cancer in 1998; it is the second leading cause of cancer death in men.

* Women visit doctors 30% more often than men.

* In 1995, nearly three-fourths of heart transplant patients in the United States were male.

* 74% of the coronary artery bypasses performed in 1995 were on men.

* Oral cancers occur more than twice as frequently in men as in women; men older than 40 have the highest incidence.

* Nearly 90% of all charges for driving under the influence filed in 1995 were against men.

* More than 30% of men in the United States are overweight.

* In 1995, more men in the U.S. ages 25 to 44 committed suicide than died of cancer.

* As many as 50% of all men ages 40 to 70 experience problems maintaining their erections.

African American Men

* The death rate from cardiovascular disease is 33% higher for African American males than the rate for white males.

* The five-year survival rate for African American males with prostate cancer is 75%; it’s 90% for white males.

* The death rates for black men ages 35 to 49 are about 175% higher than the death rates for white males in the same age group.

* African American men have the highest prostate cancer incidence rate of any racial or ethnic group in the U.S.

* The incidence rate for prostate cancer in African American men is nearly double that of white men.

* The five-year survival rate of African American men with testicular cancer is nearly 10% lower than the survival rate for white men.

* One-third of African American males in the United States are overweight.

* African American men have at least a 50% higher incidence rate of cancer than white men for cancers of the esophagus, larynx, prostate, stomach, liver, and pancreas and multiple myeloma (multiple bone marrow tumors).

Source: National Men’s Health Foundation