Childhood and Adulthood Risk Factors of Gastric Cancer: A Hospital-Based Case-Control Study in Iran

Background: Gastric cancer (GC) is the most common cancer among Iranian men.This study aimed to investigate the association between early and late lifestyle riskfactors and GC among the Iranian population. Method: A hospital-based case-control study recruited GC patients from the Can-cer Institute in 2010-2012. Controls were healthy visitors to be frequency-matchedbased on sex, age, and residential place, and were recruited from the non-oncologywards. We collected exposure to various established risk factors before the diagnosisin patients and prior to the interview in controls. Additionally, we obtained infor-mation on socioeconomic factors during childhood. Logistic regression models wereemployed to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) forvarious potential risk factors. Results: The study included a total of 210 GC patients and 210 controls. The averageage of cases was 59.9 years, and controls were 56.7 years. Participants with a familyhistory of GC had a 4-fold higher risk of GC than those without a family history(OR=4.1, 95% CI: 1.7, 9.6). We observed an inverse association between GC witheducation (P-value for trend =0.003). Individuals reported coffee consumption hada lower risk of GC (OR=0.5, 95% CI: 0.3, 0.8) as compared to non-coffee users. Thestudy found that individuals with high intake of fruit (OR=0.6, 95% CI: 0.3, 1.3) andmedium (OR=0.5, 95% CI: 0.3, 1.0) and high (OR=0.3, 95% CI: 0.1, 0.6) intake ofvegetables had lower odds of GC, while higher consumption of red meat (OR=5.3,95% CI: 2.8, 10.2) had higher odds of GC. Analysis of factors related to the childhoodperiod showed that lack of access to tap water increased odds of GC compared to ac-cess to tap water (OR: 2.9, 95% CI: 1.3, 6.7). We did not observe any significant associ-ations between h. pylori infection, opium use, waterpipe smoking, cigarette smoking,alcohol consumption, BMI, and other early life risk factors, and the risk of GC. Conclusion: The occurrence of GC is influenced by several factors, including familyhistory of GC, dietary habits, and socioeconomic status (SES) during both childhoodand adulthood.