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Japanese people may have gained longevity by balancing their diets

economist.com

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Re: Japanese people may have gained longevity by balancing their diets

#131

Post by woutr_be »

sneak wrote: post #128
woutr_be wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I beg to differ. What is considered as normal in some cultures, can be considered offensive in other cultures. It's not because those people lack empathy.

What matters is who is doing the considering. Each friendship between people is its own "culture" in that sense; I don't generally do things that my friend would consider offensive, if they are actually my friend. It's nothing to do with the wider culture or ethnic environment, or what third parties may or may not be offended by: I don't do things that I know would hurt my friends.

We could go into a whole debate about this. From my perspective, I don't think they're wrong, at the end of the day, I'm a foreigner in their country, and it's up to me to adjust my mindset. I don't think it's up to them to change their behavior because I find something offensive, that to them is not considered offensive.

Re: Japanese people may have gained longevity by balancing their diets

#132

Post by marcyb5st »

lhjn wrote: post #123
marcyb5st wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Italian person (also our life expectancy is really good on average) this hits home. An anecdotal example: I now live in Switzerland and my current doctor was shocked when I ask to get some blood analysis without being sick. He believed that I lied to my insurance company and hid some pre-existing condition. In Italy, instead, it is pretty common that every couple of years you get a complete blood analysis just…

Anecdotal data - as a Sardinia native, we do eat seafood, but to be honest around me at least that's at most a once a week practice. My grandpas, which lived to 96, 98 and 101, didn't eat much fish either. Lots of veggies though. One of my grandfathers died young due to a heart condition. All of them were regularly checking their health and doing regular blood tests. I can confirm we don't see getting tested as being…

Interesting! Some Friends from Sardinia told me that seafood is predominant in their diet! And of course, veggies.

Re: Japanese people may have gained longevity by balancing their diets

#133

Post by hntrader »

As a non-expert, the thing that bugs me about the notion that varied diets are ideal is that hunter gatherers often didn't have varied diets. Quite the opposite. Also, having a diet that isn't varied is a way to naturally regulate hunger/ghrelin.

I know we don't want to commit the naturalistic fallacy or anything like it, but it does give me pause given how little we know about the microbiome. Presumably, in human evolutionary history, we coevolved with a microbiome that relied on a very homogeneous diet. What is the impact of suddenly having a diet with 50+ food types instead of 5? We already know that this sorta screws up our hunger regulation mechanism, but could there be other deleterious effects?

I easily accept that a whole foods diet is ideal, however.

Re: Japanese people may have gained longevity by balancing their diets

#134

Post by adrianN »

_laiq wrote: post #85
agumonkey wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more I try to read, the less I know, the more I believe the answer is: - eat few - eat varied - move more - be with others - sleep nice Basically, avoid modern lifestyle advice.

Modern lifestyle advice dictates people to eat more, to move less, to be alone and sleep less ?

It comes with sitting 45 hours a week in an office and trying to cram as much activity as possible in the remaining day.

Re: Japanese people may have gained longevity by balancing their diets

#135

Post by thorin »

chaosite wrote: post #121
marcyb5st wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Italian person (also our life expectancy is really good on average) this hits home. An anecdotal example: I now live in Switzerland and my current doctor was shocked when I ask to get some blood analysis without being sick. He believed that I lied to my insurance company and hid some pre-existing condition. In Italy, instead, it is pretty common that every couple of years you get a complete blood analysis just…

As an Israeli, are blood tests not a normal thing done everywhere? I did not realize that... My family doctor asks for a battery of lab tests about once a year (or whenever I get around to scheduling a check-up), including glucose and cholesterol and liver functions and so on. This has been going on since I was twenty something.

I feel in UK they are not that common unless you are ill. For company medicals / private health schemes and for certain age groups they do happen.

Re: Japanese people may have gained longevity by balancing their diets

#136

Post by rocgf »

ergocoder wrote: post #98
gos_abhi wrote: post #21

American people have reduced longevity by eating fast food

Not just fast food. The size of dish here is very large. I moved from Thailand and was surprised how big a Thai dish in US was. There is some sort of default expectation that a dish needs to be large. I'm sure that contributes to obesity to some degree.

Indeed, and I am comparing to Europe.

In Europe, I can usually get an appetizer and a main course and be kinda full, but not stuffed. In the US, the appetizer along would usually get me full.

Re: Japanese people may have gained longevity by balancing their diets

#137

Post by gillesjacobs »

lhjn wrote: post #123
marcyb5st wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Italian person (also our life expectancy is really good on average) this hits home. An anecdotal example: I now live in Switzerland and my current doctor was shocked when I ask to get some blood analysis without being sick. He believed that I lied to my insurance company and hid some pre-existing condition. In Italy, instead, it is pretty common that every couple of years you get a complete blood analysis just…

Anecdotal data - as a Sardinia native, we do eat seafood, but to be honest around me at least that's at most a once a week practice. My grandpas, which lived to 96, 98 and 101, didn't eat much fish either. Lots of veggies though. One of my grandfathers died young due to a heart condition. All of them were regularly checking their health and doing regular blood tests. I can confirm we don't see getting tested as being…

Goes to show how important culture and religion can be in diet. Eating seafood instead of meat once a week, usually on Friday, is a widespread Christian practice called the Friday Fast. [1]

In Europe, I know a lot of people that still stick to this practice even without practicing Christianity.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_Fast

Re: Japanese people may have gained longevity by balancing their diets

#138

Post by ekianjo »

euske wrote: post #47

What's not mentioned in the OP: - INSANE peer pressure. If you're skinny as a twig in the US, you're probably considered normal in Japan. If you're actually an obese person (again, in the US standard), people here wouldn't even look at you straight. This kind of environment put a huge pressure for one to stay in shape. - INSANE obsession for health. I hear that Americans are obsessed with health, but oh boy, have the…

> I also read that the fear of COVID in Japan is the strongest in the world, despite a relatively low infection/death number here

You mau want to reconsider your sources because having a promotional campaign to enhance travel during the midst of the pandemic has made lots of Japanese travel all over the place in crowds and stack in small restaurants. Does not match at all with a supposed fear of COVID.

Re: Japanese people may have gained longevity by balancing their diets

#139

Post by ekianjo »

euske wrote: post #47

What's not mentioned in the OP: - INSANE peer pressure. If you're skinny as a twig in the US, you're probably considered normal in Japan. If you're actually an obese person (again, in the US standard), people here wouldn't even look at you straight. This kind of environment put a huge pressure for one to stay in shape. - INSANE obsession for health. I hear that Americans are obsessed with health, but oh boy, have the…

> Small clinics are everywhere and they're always filled with anxious patients because they have a benign stomach pain or something

What are you talking about ? They are filled woth old people most of the time because of the large elderly population in Japan. Most salary men are too busy with their jobs to even take a break from office work which is why the OTC market is so large in Japan to treat various ailments without seeing doctors.

Re: Japanese people may have gained longevity by balancing their diets

#140

Post by gillesjacobs »

chaosite wrote: post #121
marcyb5st wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Italian person (also our life expectancy is really good on average) this hits home. An anecdotal example: I now live in Switzerland and my current doctor was shocked when I ask to get some blood analysis without being sick. He believed that I lied to my insurance company and hid some pre-existing condition. In Italy, instead, it is pretty common that every couple of years you get a complete blood analysis just…

As an Israeli, are blood tests not a normal thing done everywhere? I did not realize that... My family doctor asks for a battery of lab tests about once a year (or whenever I get around to scheduling a check-up), including glucose and cholesterol and liver functions and so on. This has been going on since I was twenty something.

In Belgium, my general practitioner told me it used to be common practice to simple cross every box on the blood test selection sheet for a client's annual checkup.

Right now there is rightfully pushback against unnecessary testing. Over-medicalization by which people are subjected to treatment without suffering under symptoms is very much a problem. Also the socialized healthcare providers are not happy with this, as you can imagine.

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