While the causes of prostate cancer are not fully understood, there are a number of factors associated with an increased risk of developing the disease, which include:

• increasing age, especially for men aged over 50 years
• a family history of prostate cancer
• having certain germline mutations, for example in the BRCA2 gene, or particular genetic conditions such as Lynch syndrome
• race (e.g. people of African-American descent are at higher risk, while men of Asian and Hispanic/Latino descent are at less risk than Caucasian people) (American Cancer Society 2019).

Dietary factors (e.g. diets high in animal fat, dairy products or calcium and/or low in vegetables and fruit) may increase the risk of developing prostate cancer, but the exact role of diet as a risk factor is not yet clear (American Cancer Society 2019).