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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

#261

Post by bryanrasmussen »

nradov wrote: post #224
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. this is the same kind of situation in Denmark, I've lived most of my life outside of Denmark, after I cam back in my early 40s I went to the Doctor and said innocently "well I guess I'm getting to that age now where…

Annual check ups aren't supported by evidence based medicine. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1507485

thanks for that, I did not know this (obviously). That said, I don't think my doctor knew it either or he could have just said.

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

#262

Post by WhyNotHugo »

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…

The pressure is partially due to an understand of how public healthcare works.

If you're very obese, you're costing all other taxpayers a substantial amount of money. You're being careless with your health, and everyone collectively pays for it.

It's socially irresponsibly to be unhealthy.

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

#263

Post by Vinnl »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #200
Vinnl wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember first reading about that as well. That's not to say we don't have preventative care in the Netherlands though, it's just more targeted. For example, women get regular screenings for breast cancer.

Which in itself seems rather odd, given that it's not the most common, most deadly, nor easily screenable ailment. If there is screening for this specific ailment, then why not for all? It doesn't strike me as a decision born from strategic thought.

I don't know too much about breast cancer, but it was just an example. There's plenty more preventative care, they're just not grouped together in a single periodic check-up (which also doesn't check for "all" ailments - I don't think we even know of all of them :) ).

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

#264

Post by WhyNotHugo »

marcyb5st wrote: post #105
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…

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…

Once per year in the norm in Argentina.

If you have fancy / private healthcare, you're also encouraged to have the FULL checkup. That is, running on a trend-mill while a doctor controls your heart rate, etc.

Many vegan friends also requested iron and B12 checkups with blood tests, and doctors had no issue with that.

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

#265

Post by NoOneNew »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #211
NoOneNew wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not arguing with you. The whole school nurse thing is more for legality and insurance issues (I imagine). As a kid, I always thought the school nurse was borderline useless. The only thing I can see as being useful, a school nurse knowing how to perform a tracheotomy. Not something I expect a run of the mill teacher (or average person) can do. There's a relatively high peanut allergy rate in the USA amongst children due to our seriously flawed food knowledge and habits. Perhaps school nurses here do know how to do that well, amongst other "seconds matter" care before paramedics are needed. Though, I can't confirm or deny if they do.

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

#266

Post by agumonkey »

ford_o wrote: post #259
DrRobinson wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Follow this advice and you'll increase your chances of growing older increases quite a lot, and you'll stay healthier in your older years as well. There is only so far these things can take us though. A lot of (but still too little) research is being done on slowing down or maybe even reversing aging, which could increase our lifespan to 150 (or maybe even longer). Not only would we live longer, but we would stay hea…

Why brushing teeth is so important?

One reason is that it's an interface to your bloodstream. Infection under gums can leak pathogens to your heart.

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

#267

Post by refactor_master »

nradov wrote: post #219
refactor_master wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

E.g.

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/red-meat-and-the-risk-...

and

https://progressreport.cancer.gov/prevention/red_meat

I’m not going to single out studies and pretend that I’m in any way into this field.

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

#268

Post by tmm84 »

Here's another way of looking at this. After WWII and other events the amount of salt in the Japanese diet had gone down. This reduced all kinds of problems associated with high salt diets. Many things (soy sauce, pickles, dried meat) were staples in Japan since they did not have non salted ways of preserving food (ie: refrigerators).

In other words, Japanese may be living longer because the DNA of living harder got passed down (hard labor, high salt diet, low calories and only two meals a day/when available). However, Japanese seem, at least to me, to be getting different diseases. In Japan there is plenty of talk about diabetes, arthritis, alzheimer's, etc. in media and in social circles. To me it seems while the Japanese may be more heart attack/stroke resistant they are getting more Western diet related diseases. Having lived in Japan for almost a decade my view of the Japanese diet is highly biased from what I have seen but I think the stereotype of all Japanese being healthy needs to be based on seeing regular Japanese people eat day in and day out.

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