s research, our result showed that the men generally have been developing GC twice as frequently as women in China. It was suggested by Michael et al. that much of the global variation in cancer incidence has been attributed to environmental influences, including dietary preferences and unhealthy lifestyle factors. In the present study, therefore, we were interested to test 
whether some unhealthy lifestyle factors could increase the risk of GC with gender differences in China. Six lifestyle factors, including regularly taking meals, preference for salty food, eating time, smoking status, drinking status, and eating breakfast, were identified to be influenced the risk of GC with gender differences, which was consistent with the previous studies in east China. Especially, preference for salty food, drinking and smoking were the strongest and most consistent risk factors for GC. Resent researches suggested that a high 22315414 intake of salt could increase the risk of GC. It was also evidenced by our observation that the GC patients in Jiangsu province were preference for salty foods, such as salted meat, pickled vegetables, and pickled vegetable juice, which might be contaminated by Nnitroso compounds. However, the N-nitroso compounds were the most frequently proposed related to the increased risk of uppergastrointestinal cancers. Drinking and smoking, VS-4718 another two dominant risk factors for GC in the world, were also examined in this study. We found a significant association between drinking and GC risk in Jiangsu province. It was evidence by a laboratory study that smoking could increase the apoptosis in the rat gastric mucosa by an increase in XO activity, and alcohol could also exert influence on acid secretion, gastric emptying, and certain acid-related diseases, such as gastritis accompanied with 9128839 damage of the gastric mucosa, and the following inflammatory reaction will in turn promote gastric cell proliferation and differentiation. In the process, the N-nitroso compounds and mycotoxins from some salty food may induce gene mutations, thus preference for salty food may be the original risk of GC. And evidence pointed to an association with pathways involved in developmental processes. Key molecules of these pathways were the receptor tyrosine kinases, which were found to be aberrantly activated or overexpressed in a variety of tumors and therefore represent promising targets for therapeutical intervention. EGFR was one of the key molecules, and many lines of evidence suggest that highly invasive GC is associated with the aberrant activation or overactivation of EGFR due to gene amplification or structural alterations. Very recently, a case-control study of 61 cases and 20 controls in Henan province, located in middle China, showed that the EGFR rs28384375 C/T polymorphism may promote the occurrence and development of GC. Moreover, another case-control study of 138 cases and 170 controls in Jiangxi province, located in south-east China, revealed that the EGFR rs763317 G/A polymorphism may associate with an increased risk of GC. EGFR is a growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase and belongs to the receptor tyrosine kinase superfamily, whose members are characterized by an extracellular domain, a short lipophilic transmembrane domain, and an intracellular domain that harbors the tyrosine kinase activity. EGFR can be activated by binding ligands, such as EGF and TGF-a, and it plays pivotal roles in development, proliferation and differentiation. The
