title: Study of risk factors for gastric cancer by populational databases analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To study the association between the incidence of gastric cancer and populational exposure to risk/protective factors through an analysis of international databases.
  
  
  METHODS
  Open-access global databases concerning the incidence of gastric cancer and its risk/protective factors were identified through an extensive search on the Web. As its distribution was neither normal nor symmetric, the cancer incidence of each country was categorized according to ranges of percentile distribution. The association of each risk/protective factor with exposure was measured between the extreme ranges of the incidence of gastric cancer (under the 25(th) percentile and above the 75(th) percentile) by the use of the Mann-Whitney test, considering a significance level of 0.05.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A variable amount of data omission was observed among all of the factors under study. A weak or nonexistent correlation between the incidence of gastric cancer and the study variables was shown by a visual analysis of scatterplot dispersion. In contrast, an analysis of categorized incidence revealed that the countries with the highest human development index (HDI) values had the highest rates of obesity in males and the highest consumption of alcohol, tobacco, fruits, vegetables and meat, which were associated with higher incidences of gastric cancer. There was no significant difference for the risk factors of obesity in females and fish consumption.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Higher HDI values, coupled with a higher prevalence of male obesity and a higher per capita consumption of alcohol, tobacco, fruits, vegetables and meat, are associated with a higher incidence of gastric cancer based on an analysis of populational global data.
authors.affiliation: Fangio Ferrari, Marco Antonio Moura Reis, Master's Program on Health and Environment, University of the Region of Joinville-Univille, Joinville, Santa Catarina 89219-710, Brazil.
authors.forename: Fangio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ferrari
authors.affiliation: Fangio Ferrari, Marco Antonio Moura Reis, Master's Program on Health and Environment, University of the Region of Joinville-Univille, Joinville, Santa Catarina 89219-710, Brazil.
authors.forename: Marco Antonio Moura
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Reis
mesh_terms: D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000453:epidemiology; D057225:Data Mining / Q000379:methods*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004032:Diet / Q000009:adverse effects; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology; D011159:Population Surveillance; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000453:epidemiology; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology*
keywords: Environment; Epidemiologic factors; Gastric cancer; Public health; Risk factors