Three bad habits that lead to stomach cancer

16 years old had cancer

Associate Professor Nguyen Anh Tuan - Head of the Department of Digestive Surgery, 108 Central Military Hospital - said that the rate of stomach cancer is getting younger. Associate Professor Tuan once performed total gastrectomy on a 16-year-old patient and 4-5 cases on patients only 18 years old.

A 16-year-old patient was admitted to the hospital with epigastric pain and black stools. The doctor ordered paraclinical tests to diagnose late-stage stomach cancer.

Associate Professor Tuan said that he is receiving younger and younger cases. In young people, stomach cancer is less differentiated, so it is much more dangerous than in the elderly. Elderly patients who have surgery for stomach cancer have a low risk of recurrence, and many even live more than 5 years. However, in the group under 30 years old, many cases still progress after surgery, with peritoneal metastasis. Meanwhile, young people are subjective and indifferent to warning signs of the disease.

In the early stages, stomach cancer has no obvious signs, most patients discover it during routine health check-ups. Associate Professor Tuan said that later, patients feel full after eating and have indigestion, nausea, vomiting after eating, epigastric pain, simple anemia or black stools.

The reason stomach cancer is increasing and getting younger is because, in addition to genetics, genetic factors, eating habits also have a direct impact on the stomach.

First: Eat salty food

Doctor Tuan said that Vietnamese people eat too much salt, the food is already rich in flavor and they also have the habit of dipping it in salt and fish sauce. In Europe, the rate of stomach cancer is lower than in Asia because people rarely eat fish sauce. If they need to dip, they only use mustard and sauces that are not as salty as in East Asia.

Second: Pick up food and share dipping sauce.

Associate Professor Tuan said that the habit of picking up food for each other increases the possibility of infection with HP bacteria (Helicobacter pylori). This is the leading risk factor. Up to 60% of stomach cancer patients are related to HP. In particular, HP type I is 5-6 times more likely to cause gastric carcinoma than other types. Although the mechanism of HP causing stomach cancer is not yet clear, chronic gastritis caused by HP will lead to atrophy of the gastric mucosa, intestinal metaplasia, dysplasia of the gastric mucosa and cancer.

However, people with stomach cancer are all positive for HP bacteria, but not everyone infected with HP will develop cancer. Associate Professor Tuan said that HP eradication treatment is very important. If people with gastritis have this bacteria, they need to comply with treatment to prevent stomach cancer. In addition, to prevent HP infection, the best way is to stop the habit of sharing food and dipping sauce.

Third: Eat a lot of salty foods

Stomach cancer rates are high in some countries and experts have linked food to the disease. Foods high in nitrates increase the risk of stomach cancer.

Associate Professor Tuan said that vegetables fertilized with a lot of nitrogen, salted and smoked fish, pickles, etc. react with acids in the stomach and turn into nitrosamines. Nitrosamines are substances that have been proven to cause cancer.

Currently, gastric cancer treatment is multimodal, in which surgery plays a decisive role. Accordingly, gastric cancer patients will have part or all of their stomach removed, depending on the location and extent of tumor invasion, and the lymph node system around the stomach will be removed.

Whether or not a patient receives adjuvant chemotherapy after surgery depends on the stage of the disease after the pathology results of the tumor and lymph nodes are available.

According to Vietnamnet