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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

#211

Post by Blikkentrekker »

NoOneNew wrote: post #205
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - INSANE obsession for health. I hear that Americans are obsessed with health, but oh boy, have they looked into Japan. Small clinics are everywhere and they're always filled with anxious patients because they have a benign stomach pain or something. Physical checkup is mandatory for most companies. I also read that the fear of COVID in Japan is the strongest in the world, despite a relatively low infection/death n…

The nurses in US schools (I've been out for 15 years, things may be different now) are mostly there if a kid gets a bloody nose, deals with a kid's allergic reaction, verify a sudden extreme temperature to dismiss the kid or generally stabilize before a paramedic arrives if it's serious. In high school, one kid cracked his head open on the gym floor from slipping while playing indoor soccer. Pretty much all she could…

Well, all of those things happened in my school too, including cracking my head open such that I had to go to a hospital's e.r. unit.

All of it was done by normal teachers that would otherwise teach history or geography and simply had taken a first aid course. I do not have a trained nurse at home either, and I can just as easily be hurt so to crack my head open there, dare I say more easily.

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

#212

Post by ynfnehf »

inglor_cz wrote: post #171
ynfnehf wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason Sweden doesn't do regular health checks of the population is because there is no good scientific evidence that it has any effect. And that if a person feels healthy, they most likely are. I think the similar reasoning is used in other countries. If you can read swedish/use Google translate, this page explains it very clearly: https://www.1177.se/fragor--svar/nationellt/behandling--hjal...

"And that if a person feels healthy, they most likely are." Uh, high blood pressure is a typical "silent" disease with major effect on health later.

The article says that you should check blood pressure and blood sugar every 5 years. And blood fats "some time". But that's very different from a regular check up.

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

#213

Post by graeme »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #196
darkerside wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem like it's offensive in america to mention overweightedness at all, which seems like it enables overweight people to ignore it. Seems unhealthy as well, both physically and mentally.

I once incurred the wrath of many on a forum for simply saying that my best friend is quite fat. 100% of the those that were angry were from the U.S.A. and this was pointed out in the discussion by others that didn't seem to see the problem with stating such a simple thing about my best friend and most of those that were angry relented after chalking it up to a cultural difference. But apparently it is deeply sensiti…

Yeah I lived in cuba for a work project. I travelled to another city for a month, and when I came back the head of my host family said “you’ve gained weight”. Was probably five pounds or so.

Was motivational to stop that weight gain in its tracks! At that level pretty simple diet changes will turn it around.

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

#214

Post by amanaplanacanal »

christiansakai wrote: post #174

When my wife was working in NYC, she gained weight considerably, with her normal eating portion. After she went home back to Japan, and still had her normal eating portion, she lost her weight. At the same time, every time I visited Japan for 2 weeks I usually splurge daily, above my normal portion, and I did not gain weight at all. I might've even lose some occasionally.

It could be something environmental that we haven’t identified yet.

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

#215

Post by bobthepanda »

hbarka wrote: post #100
bobthepanda wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, I've also read that they consider it helpful for allergy season. Japan supposedly has one of the worst allergy seasons in the world due to misguided industrial policy around timber. TL,DR; After WWII Japan heavily incentivized reforestation to provide cheap domestic timber for industrial and defense purposes, but only with two types of trees, Japanese cedar and Japanese cypress. It turns out that even with this…

“Male trees are one of the most significant reasons why seasonal allergies have gotten so bad in the recent decades.” https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/seasonal-allergies-bla...

That’s a US practice.

In Japan this isn’t really a problem, since the forests are clearly able to breed if they are growing denser, and the streets are mostly not wide enough to have trees except maybe on major roads.

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

#216

Post by calvano915 »

gillesjacobs wrote: post #140
chaosite wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, a…

Why conflate over/unnecessary treatment with availability and evaluation of markers? I guess if neither the patient nor the health care practitioner are uninterested in careful consideration of the data, then why bother I suppose. But then why bother at all with seat-belts, environmental laws, or dental visits if there's no value to prevention? We can just react after its too late, for everything.

/s in some of this, perhaps all

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

#217

Post by CodeGlitch »

whoknew1122 wrote: post #208
CodeGlitch wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you are right - but something has to be done about Western health (I live in the UK, so the populations' health is a concern to me as we have a national health-service - the more people who are sick means fewer resources to go around). As you say, fat-shaming people is unhelpful - but on the flip-side we have "progressive"-types who claim images of skinny-people in the London underground are "offensive" [1]. [1]…

I'm not saying that I agree with the idea that that ad is offensive. But the issue isn't that the person is skinny. The issue that it's a very skinny model is pictured alongside the words "Are you beach body read?" This implies that the only people who have 'beach bodies' are those as skinny as that model. The idea isn't 'OMG, skinny people are offensive' The idea is 'The implication of this ad is that only people wh…

"only people who have 'beach bodies' are those as skinny as that model."

But that's true isn't it? A beach body = someone who is skinny or has abs. This is how we humans view healthy people.

It's something to aspire to if that's your thing.

Personally when I see images of fit, well-toned men, it reminds me that I need to do more exercise. I don't agree that such images should be removed because not everyone can achieve those things.

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

#218

Post by faceplanted »

agumonkey wrote: post #109
_laiq wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Modern lifestyle makes you chase technohopium based ideas. Often they'll sell you complex solutions for a non existent problem. Modern life is never calling for bad ideas loudly, but tons of incentives that make you go the wrong way slowly. Bad job -> stress -> comforting with premade meals too tasty due to sugar and additives. No more walking because you want to leverage your car. You delay sleep to work later (bad…

You two are talking different things, you originally said "modern lifestyle advice", but now you're saying "modern lifestyle", which are very different things, the "advice" agrees with you, that's what the guy was asking about it.

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

#219

Post by nradov »

refactor_master wrote: post #172
CraneWorm wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seafood instead of meat most of that's still meat though?

According to science it should be better than red meat. Additionally, a lot of seafood comes in smaller portions, is full of bones, shells and whatnot, whereas it’s relatively easy and cheap to get large quantities of fully edible red meat. It’s not that you couldn’t have a pound of peeled shrimps, but my own experience with seafood says it’s not very common. So overall you’re most likely ending up eating less meat,…

Better how? What science? Do you have a citation? Most comparative diet studies are only observational with multiple confounding factors and no proper controls.

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

#220

Post by [deleted] »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #195
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…

I remember some research with respect to the U.S.A. where such routine checkups are common, and it concluded that it was close to useless to do so. Routine checkups never happen where I live. — one visits a healer when one feel sick.

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