Decreased body fat and gastric cancer: does the hen come before the egg, or vice versa?

and reported after publication bias? Or do they refl ect a possible infl uence of existing cancer or of a causative Helicobacter pylori infection on nutritional status, or suggest unknown pathogenetic mechanisms for EGC? A large number of comparisons were performed. Four partially interrelated parameters, i.e., total, visceral, and subcutaneous fat areas and the ratio of visceral to subcutaneous fat, were studied in EGC versus colon cancer and compared also with data from the Japanese population. EGC was subgrouped according to differentiation, depth of invasion, location, H. pylori positivity, presence of ulceration, symptomatology, and in patient categories defi ned by sex and age. Occasionally the compared subsets were defi ned by several of these variables, such as male versus female subjects in relation to age and differentiation, giving eight patient groups in each of which four parameters were studied resulting in 32 measurements. We would not be surprised to fi nd a statistically signifi cant difference between some of these measurements due to chance.