Association between refrigerator use and the risk of gastric cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies

There were many observational studies that examined the association between refrigerator use and stomach cancer. However, the results remain to be a contradiction. This study aimed to evaluate the association between refrigerator use and the risk of gastric cancer. We systematically searched the PubMed, Embase, Web of Science databases (up to 31 May 2017), and manually reviewed the references lists of retrieved articles, to identify studies that evaluated the association between refrigerator use and the risk of gastric cancer. Observational studies reporting odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the relationship between refrigerator use and the risk of gastric cancer were included. Two authors independently reviewed and selected eligible studies and conducted the study quality evaluation. We included a total of twelve studies enrolling 14,361 individuals. The summarized OR the association between refrigerator use and the risk of gastric cancer was 0.70 (95% CI, 0.56–0.88; P<0.001). Subgroup analysis showed that a significantly inverse association between refrigerator use and gastric cancer risk was observed in in some Asian countries (OR = 0.68, 95% CI, 0.50–0.93; P = 0.002), but not in some Western countries, such as Germany, etc. Refrigerator use is significantly associated with a decreased risk of gastric cancer. Further studies are warranted to confirm whether refrigerator use could reduce the risk of gastric cancer among some Asian countries.