Extra ingredients: hormones in food.

-Despite a decline in mortality rates since about 1931 stomach cancer remains a major cause of death in England and Wales. National death rates from 1916 to 1979 are presented by sex, age and 2 broad social-class groups covering manual and non-manual occupations. In both sexes the decline in rates has been most rapid in the young and has slowed progressively with advancing age. The ratio of male/female rates is currently 1-3 at ages 25-34, increases to a peak of 2-7 at ages 55-64 and then declines again but the pattern was different before 1931. Among both men and married women, rates are consistently higher in manual than in nonmanual classes, but the difference is greater among men. Rates for men in nonmanual occupations, and for both classes of married women, declined markedly between 1931 and 1951, but for male manual workers the decline was relatively slight until after 1951.