(I)
Everyone used to laugh at their parents for spreading the pseudoscience of health and wellness and how they wouldn’t listen, but this time they finally fell into the pit too.
As long as it is related to the epidemic, there are all kinds of screenshots of WeChat from unknown sources, videos from unknown sources, and a lot of strange conspiracy theories, and many people don’t even look at the source and don’t even think about asking for proof, they just transfer it to various groups and to their circle of friends.
Most cancers are “diseases of affluence,” with rates significantly higher in developed countries in Europe and the United States than in China, including prostate cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and others. There are a few exceptions, one of which is stomach cancer.
Gastric cancer is a highly prevalent tumor worldwide, but it is especially prevalent in China. China has 20% of the world’s population, but it accounts for 44% of the incidence and 50% of the deaths from stomach cancer!
In contrast, stomach cancer is much less common in developed countries in Europe and the United States.
(Diagram of global gastric cancer incidence)
Over 1 million new patients are diagnosed each year, and about half a million of them are actually in China?
Why is that, exactly?
Most people’s guess, is it the ethnicity?
Looking at the graph above is very suspicious indeed.
Because not only China has a lot of stomach cancer, but our neighboring countries also have a surprisingly high incidence of stomach cancer. Japan and South Korea, in particular, have much higher incidence rates than Europe and the United States, despite being developed countries. In fact, South Korea is the number one country in the world for gastric cancer incidence, twice as high as China!
The top four countries in the world for gastric cancer incidence are South Korea, Mongolia, Japan, and China. Four East Asian countries, which actually monopolize the top four, are really difficult brothers and sisters.
Is it possible that East Asians are genetically incompetent and inherently more dangerous?
Don’t worry about it particularly.
After research, it was found that ethnic factors, although somewhat linked to stomach cancer, are certainly not the main cause.
The best counter-example is the dramatic drop in stomach cancer rates in the offspring of Chinese immigrants to the United States. Japanese living in Hawaii have significantly lower rates of stomach, liver, and esophageal cancers than their compatriots living in Japan.
So why exactly is stomach cancer so prevalent in East Asia?
(b)   nbsp;
In addition to the high number of gastric cancers in China, another characteristic is that they are often familial, meaning that there are multiple gastric cancer patients in a family.
How does this work?
Familial cancers, which generally have two main types of causes, are endogenous, where the family has inherited a risk gene mutation. The second is exogenous, where the family shares unhealthy habits or an external environment.
For gastric cancer, there are both endogenous and exogenous causes. The main known risks for stomach cancer include the following.
- Genetic factors: Carrying a specific genetic mutation, such as CDH1.
- Infectious factors: Carrying H. pylori.
- Dietary factors: Eating a lot of high-salt or smoked foods and lack of vegetables and fruits.
- Habitual factors: smoking, alcohol consumption, lack of exercise.
The first one belongs to internal factors, and the next three belong to external factors.
Heredity and stomach cancer are related.
For example, there is a group of gastric cancers called “hereditary diffuse gastric cancer”. It is caused by the CDH1 mutation, and people who carry this mutation have more than a 70% lifetime chance of getting gastric cancer and can get sick very young.
Overall, first-degree relatives of people with gastric cancer are more likely to get gastric cancer than the general population. Therefore, if someone in your family has stomach cancer, you should pay attention to your own habits and get screened for it, the most effective of which is a gastroscopy.
But the percentage of patients with genetic causes is very low. The high incidence of stomach cancer in China is still mainly due to external factors, including lifestyle habits and the external environment.
The first major exogenous factor is infectious factors, mainly H. pylori.
(Image from Station Cool Helo)
H. pylori infection is one of the clearest risk factors for gastric cancer. People who are infected are at significantly greater risk than those who are not, and it is estimated that more than 50% of people in China are H. pylori carriers! The total number is over 700 million!
Long-term H. pylori infection can lead to chronic gastritis, which stimulates cellular mutation and growth. Over time, this increases the risk of cancer.
Fortunately, H. pylori is curable with a combination of antibiotic therapies. If you are a carrier, a consultation and treatment is recommended.
(iii)
In addition to infection, stomach cancer, a tumor of the digestive tract, is also closely related to lifestyle habits.
Many people know that smoking causes lung cancer and excessive alcohol consumption brings liver cancer, but in fact they both significantly increase the risk of developing stomach cancer as well.
In addition to this, dietary habits are also very important. High salt and pickled foods in particular are a major risk.
Chronically consuming foods high in salt can damage the gastric mucosa, increasing the risk of inflammation and cancer. In addition, pickled foods have the potential for excessive nitrites, which enter the body and metabolize into the powerful carcinogen nitrosamines.
It’s no coincidence that China, Japan, and Korea, which have high rates of stomach cancer, have a long tradition of eating foods high in salt and pickled foods.
Japanese ramen, Korean kimchi, and Chinese salted fish are all foods that are high in salt.
The Japanese are very long-lived, so there are many people who promote the Japanese diet. The Japanese diet does have many good aspects in it, such as eating lots of fish, but it also has less healthy things like ramen, salted fish, and fried tempura.
Korea is much more famous for its kimchi, and every time you go to a Korean meal, it’s served with a variety of kimchi before the meal. They have the world’s highest incidence of stomach cancer, and are inextricably linked to their mania for kimchi pickles.
Many regions of China love pickled foods. Coastal areas make salted fish, fish sauce, etc., with a lot of salt, which is delicious, but unhealthy. Many coastal areas in Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong, and Liaoning are among the areas with a high incidence of stomach cancer.
Chinese salted fish is on the World Health Organization’s list of “class 1 carcinogens”!
So, we should try to eat fresh food as much as possible, but pickled food is not a no-brainer, but it must be eaten sparingly.
The higher incidence of stomach cancer in rural China compared to urban areas is also related to dietary habits and how food is stored.
(d)
Lastly, an interesting story for you.
Although stomach cancer is now rare in Europe and the United States, it used to be the number one killer of cancer in Europe and the United States, with a very high incidence. Miraculously, in just 30 years, from 1950 to 1980, the number of deaths from stomach cancer in the West suddenly plummeted by 50%!
Guess what the main reason is?
A: The emergence of new anti-cancer drugs
B: The spread of screening tools
C: H. pylori killing
D: Popularization of refrigerators
(Answer: D: Refrigerator universal)
It was the advent and popularity of home refrigerators that allowed people to store and eat more fresh food, thus reducing their reliance on a variety of high-salt cured products. As a result the incidence of stomach cancer began to decline.
(Image from Station Cool Helo)
In fact, over the last 20 years, excluding age, the incidence of stomach cancer in China has also begun a slow but steady decline, with a faster decline in cities. This should be related to the popularity of refrigerators in Chinese urban households.
This proves once again that traditional habits, are not necessarily healthy.
The ancient people who didn’t have refrigerators were smart to figure out how to use salt to preserve food. They didn’t have a choice, and they wouldn’t have lived that long anyway, so they ate salted fish and kimchi every day.
Now that everyone is looking for health and longevity, there are traditions that should be thrown away.