Menstrual and reproductive factors and gastric-cancer risk in women

To understand possible correlates of the systematically higher gastric-cancer rates in males than in females, we investigated the role of menstrual, reproductive and hormonal factors in females, using data from a case-control study conducted in Northern Italy. Cases were 229 post-menopausal women with incident, histologically confirmed gastric cancer, and controls were 614 post-menopausal women in hospital for acute, nonneoplastic, non-digestive-tract conditions. After allowance for age, education, family history, and selected dietary correlates of stomach cancer, a reduced gastric-cancer risk was observed in women with later menopause (odds ratio, OR = 0.6, p value for trend