A socio-medical study of adult diseases related to life style--comparison of foreigners living in Japan and Japanese

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between life style factors and adult diseases among three ethnic groups, Chinese living in Japan, Koreans living in Japan and Japanese. The mortalities of major cancers and other adult diseases of Chinese and Koreans in Japan were compared with those of Japanese by calculating Standardized Mortality Ratios (SMR) of the two groups using death rates in the Japanese population as the standard. Life style data on smoking, drinking and dietary habits of the three groups were collected by self-administered questionnaire surveys, and age-adjusted proportions were calculated with the truncated world population as the standard. The results are summarized as follows: 1. The mortality rates for liver cancer, lung cancer, diabetes mellitus, heart disease, hypertensive disease, cerebrovascular disease and liver cirrhosis for Koreans of both sexes in Japan were significantly higher than those for Japanese, but the mortality rates of stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer and breast cancer for Korean females were lower than those for Japanese females. 2. The mortality rates for heart disease, diabetes mellitus, hypertensive disease, liver cirrhosis, rectum cancer, liver cancer, lung cancer (females), breast cancer (females) and cerebrovascular disease (females) for Chinese in Japan were higher than those for Japanese, but the rates for stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer (both sexes), uterus cancer (females) and cerebrovascular disease (males) were lower than those for Japanese. 3.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)