| | While no clear cause for stomach cancer has definitively been established, studies have shown that dietary and environmental factors may greatly affect the incidence of stomach cancer.
- Stomach cancer has been linked to the consumption of red meats, alcohol, cabbage, spices, and fish. A large number of studies have established that nitrates and nitrites, found in salty, cured, smoked and pickled foods, can increase the risk of stomach cancer. Populations in countries such as Japan, Korea, parts of Eastern Europe, and Latin America, which rely on nitrates to preserve foods, have a greater incidence of stomach cancer.
- Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium that can cause stomach inflammation and ulcers, may be an important risk factor for stomach cancer. Long-term infection may lead to chronic atrophic gastritis, an inflammation of the stomach's inner layer. Patients with adenocarcinoma of the stomach have a higher rate of infection with heliobacter pylorithan people without this cancer.
- Smoking and exposure to certain dusts and fumes in the workplace have been linked to a higher risk of stomach cancer.
- Those with a family history of stomach cancer as well as those with gastritis may have a higher risk of developing the cancer.
- Black, Asian and Hispanic populations have a greater incidence than whites.
- Stomach cancer occurs twice as often in men as in women, typically striking people between the ages of 50 and 60 and more often those with blood type A.
- Those who have had stomach surgery or have pernicious anemia (severe decrease in red blood cells), achlorhydria (absence of hydrochloric acid from the gastric juices) or gastric atrophy have an increased risk of stomach cancer.
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