Stomach Cancer: Down

One big killer among the various kinds of cancer is losing its punch. Overall, between 1930 and 1959, the death rate per 100,000 from stomach cancer has dropped from 25.4 to 9.8, which multiplies out as 20,000 deaths in 1959. This drop, writes Buffalo's Dr. George E. Moore in Surgery, Gynecology & Obstetrics, "is adequate proof that gastric cancer is not inevitable." But the factors in the victim's way of life that might cause the disease remain to be identified.

Stomach cancer, which is often undetected until it is far advanced and likely to prove fatal, shows puzzling variations in frequency. The poor, says Dr. Moore, are more likely to get it than the rich. This suggests that the recent decrease reflects an improvement in the diets of the poor. At Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, ethnic groups with high rates of stomach cancer have only one dietary peculiarity in common: they eat a lot of cabbage. Dr. Moore comments: "Fortunately, the consumption of cabbage has been decreasing for several decades."

In other countries, other food habits are blamed. Japan has one of the highest rates of stomach cancer, and the disease there is commoner among men than among women. Says Honolulu's Dr. Walter B. Quisenberry: Japanese men usually eat first, while the food is very hot; they drink scalding tea; they then drink more alcohol than their womenfolk. He also suggests that traditional stoicism may predispose Japanese men to psychosomatic stomach ulcers and later cancers. In the Scandinavian countries, doctors blame high rates of stomach cancer on diets rich in fish, with home-smoked fish particularly suspected in Iceland.

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