Cancer Patterns and Lifestyle Among Japanese Brazilian in Sao Paulo

Abstract

Brazil's total Japanese population was estimated at 1.2 million in 1988, 290 thousand of whom lived in the city of Sao Paulo. The authors investigated their cancer patterns and their lifestyle. When the age-adjusted rates of cancer incidence among Japan-born immigrants were compared with those among Japanese in Japan, the rate of cancer of the stomach in both sexes, pancreas and lung in men and rectum in women were significantly lower, while non-melanoma skin cancer, prostate and breast cancer were higher. No significant increase of colon cancer was recognized. The mortality data showed a similar trend, although no significant decrease of stomach cancer was detected in either sex. A cross-sectional study of randomly selected Japanese residents in the city of Sao Paulo showed some lifestyle modifications when the results were compared with data from a cross-sectional study conducted in five Japanese populations in Japan using similar protcol. Japanese Brazilians smoked less and drank less. Their dietary habits were more like the pattern seen in Western countries with higher intake of beef and dairy products, although they consumed vegetables more frequently. Serum level of total cholesterol, uric acid and total carotene revealed significantly higher values, while serum selenium was much lower than Japanese in Japan. The differences in lifestyle shown between Japanese residents in Sao Paulo and in Japan were discussed in relation to the cancer pattern between them.
J Epidemiol, 1996 ; 6 : S169-S173.n-abstract=