Movember men's health awareness campaign kicks off with clean shave

Beard hair covered the ground at Fire Station 30 in Montreal's Mile End Wednesday as the crew prepared to grow their facial hair for Movember.

"It gets the converations going about how we can take care of ourselves better," said Assistant Fire Chief Dave Waterhouse, watching from the wings, flanked by a fire engine and a table of muffins and hot coffee.

Also in the crowd was former Montreal Canadiens player Gilbert Delorme, sporting his #27 jersey and a clean shave.

"We'll, it's going to be pretty long by the end of the month," he said with a grin. "My beard is pretty strong."

Movember is a relatively new yet widely practiced campaign. Through November, people all over the world will grow out their beards and moustaches (the latter being the "M" in "Movember) to raise awareness about prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in Canada. Every day, about 70 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 13 die from it.

"It is a very slow-growing tumour. It is amenable to be detected via screening," said Dr. Eduardo Franco, a cancer epidemiology professor at McGill University.

He says the key to treating the disease is catching it early. Anyone with a prostate should get checked, but there are groups that are at a higher risk.

Those with a family history of prostate cancer are most at risk, as well as people living with obesity, tall men, those with inherited gene mutations, and men of African and Caribbean descent.

"Black men have a much higher risk than other ethnicities," said Dr. Franco, adding that the cancer can be more aggressive for those patients as well.

"In my case, I was diagnosed when I was 48," said Laurent Proulx, president and CEO of PROCURE, a prostate cancer awareness organization.

"I was a top triathlete, marathon runner," he added.

He said he was lucky he caught it early during a routine screening. He got surgery to remove the cancer, and five months later, he ran the Boston Marathon.

He says screening for prostate cancer should be as routine as changing your tires in the winter -- something he says men are a lot more willing to do.

"If there's a yellow light on their dashboard," he said, "the first thing they do is call the garage and get it fixed. They don't do that with their health."

"Men and young men, we've been raised with this idea that you can't cry, guys need to keep things internalized," said Evan Connor with the Movember organization. "Guys growing the moustache, it's kind of their way of saying 'I'm here for you, bro.'"

This year, organizers want young men and women to talk more about their physical and mental health.

Connor says people should think of November as a month to get more comfortable talking about depression and suicide.

Checking in on one another, he says, is a key to keeping a healthy community.