Nutrient consumption and gastric cancer mortality in five regions of Japan

To explore the causes of the threefold variation in mortality rate from gastric cancer in Japan, we studied the geographic correlations between nutrient consumption and the disease in five Public Health Center districts including the regions with the highest and lowest mortality rates in the country. In the winters of 1989-1991, a three-day weighed food record was collected from 207 men and the wives of 165 of the men sampled from the five districts. The average daily consumption of selected nutrients was computed and correlated with the age-adjusted mortality rates from gastric cancer. Partial rank correlation coefficients adjusted for sex and other nutrients were 0.45, -0.80, -0.20, and -0.07 for sodium, carotene, ascorbic acid, and retinol, respectively. The results suggest that variation in gastric cancer mortality in Japan may be partly accounted for by the regional differences in consumption of sodium, carotene, and possibly ascorbic acid.