Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Japanese people may have gained longevity by balancing their diets

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 268 posts

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

#41

Post by [deleted] »

zkirill wrote: post #20
thick wrote: post #14

I would sincerely like to get a breakdown of all the factors that contribute to the Japanese living to such an old age, rather than the usual "this one weird trick" bullshit that Economist and others try to swindle on the Western readership. It's quite frankly annoying, although I've lost the last ounce of respect I've had for the Economist years ago so I'm the idiot for expecting them to be any better. I've gone thr…

What's an alternative to the Economist? I can't find a better publication short of an academic journal or literature. Someone recommended Foreign Affairs but I've yet to buy one.

[deleted]

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

#42

Post by [deleted] »

presentation wrote: post #25
ioseph wrote: post #4

Paywalled so didn't read TFA but: It's always surprised that the longevity in Japan is often attributed to diet. From my travels there my impression is of a diet that largely consists of rice and various meats and a high consumption of alcohol and cigarettes. Although there definitely seems to be far less sugar in everything. Culturally it seems that fitness in general is encouraged, combined with a very different at…

Re diet: putting aside that alcohol-per-capita consumption here in Japan is less than the OECD average [1], and also how the article is actually about how the introduction of meat into the Japanese diet has caused a decrease in strokes (i.e. this is probably off-topic); it is true that if you are eating out cheaply, you'll likely find lots of rice and meat stuff like gyuudon (beef on rice), katsudon (breaded meat on…

[deleted]

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

#43

Post by bouncycastle »

euske wrote: post #37
29athrowaway wrote: post #26

Some observations... 1) Japan is not built around cars. There are more trains. You get to walk more. 2) Food portions are smaller, making it harder to overeat. 3) Fish is more popular than meat. Fish section in supermarkets is larger. Most kitchens have fish cooking equipment. 4) They do not put cheese in goddamn everything. I guess they get to eat more mercury (from fish) and arsenic (from rice).

> 1) Japan is not built around cars. There are more trains. You get to walk more. This is false. About half of the population lives outside big cities, where you'll need a car to survive. I don't see people's shape changes in the rural areas. > 2) Food portions are smaller, making it harder to overeat. I think you got this backward. Food portions are smaller in Japan because people's stomach is smaller. Junk foods ar…

ahh, you beat me to it! Yes, good point about the smaller stomachs.

Wikipedia says that "Studies show that there is a correlation between small stature and a longer life expectancy. Individuals of small stature are also more likely to have lower blood pressure and are less likely to acquire cancer." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height

So this could be it ;-)

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

#44

Post by panny »

I thought I'd chime in with something that seems to be overlooked. Japanese have the 80% diet rule. Eat until you are 80% full. Hara hachi bun me. Calorie restriction has been shown to increase lifespan in several different species,

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/calorie...

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

#45

Post by asiachick »

presentation wrote: post #25
ioseph wrote: post #4

Paywalled so didn't read TFA but: It's always surprised that the longevity in Japan is often attributed to diet. From my travels there my impression is of a diet that largely consists of rice and various meats and a high consumption of alcohol and cigarettes. Although there definitely seems to be far less sugar in everything. Culturally it seems that fitness in general is encouraged, combined with a very different at…

Re diet: putting aside that alcohol-per-capita consumption here in Japan is less than the OECD average [1], and also how the article is actually about how the introduction of meat into the Japanese diet has caused a decrease in strokes (i.e. this is probably off-topic); it is true that if you are eating out cheaply, you'll likely find lots of rice and meat stuff like gyuudon (beef on rice), katsudon (breaded meat on…

> anything served cold besides ice cream is disgusting,

In the west there are salads. They're cold. In Japan salads are rare and usually nothing but iceberg lettuce and cherry tomatoes.

> who thinks that anything pickled is gross,

The pickled isle of a western super market has more pickled things than the corresponding Japanese super market. They're just different kinds of pickled things.

> normal Japanese meal generally has a pretty good mix of stuff

And similar in the west isn't it? The normal family dinner is 1 meat dish (beef/chicken/pork/fish), 1 starch dish (bread/potatoes/rice), 1-2 veggie dishes (salad, green beens, peas, carrots, etc...)

Japanese "in general" find many western things disgusting. Most Japanese find savory beans gross. As popular as cheese as become in Japan there's still a large percentage of Japanese that have never eaten any or eat it rarely. This is especially true outside big cities where the culture is less influenced by the west.

Japanese often can't eat anything other than Japanese food. There are plenty of tours of other countries where you can sign up to have all your meals prepared for you while abroad and all of it will be Japanese food.

Many Asian cultures (including Japan), for many people if you haven't eating a bowl of rice you haven't eaten.

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

#46

Post by simplemen »

1-6 wrote: post #12
ioseph wrote: post #4

Paywalled so didn't read TFA but: It's always surprised that the longevity in Japan is often attributed to diet. From my travels there my impression is of a diet that largely consists of rice and various meats and a high consumption of alcohol and cigarettes. Although there definitely seems to be far less sugar in everything. Culturally it seems that fitness in general is encouraged, combined with a very different at…

In the USA, it's called fat-shaming. In Asian countries, you may feel a little bit shamed if you're overweight. You'll even get less food around the table if you're fat. Societal pressures could be both a curse and a blessing.

Fat shaming is brutal in Asian countries. If one is fat, they will be bullied or they will need to be bully. I know a Pakistani American obese woman who went to Pakistan for a wedding. Every kid in the neighborhood was calling "moti" auntie which is equalant of fatty.

I work with a lot of Indians and they will randomly point out that you have gained weight.

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

#47

Post by euske »

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 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 number here. People are always talking about their health, and so is the national media. If you watch the Japanese TV, you'll also feel sick, simply because there's so much fear! Maybe this is good for public health overall, but I bet there's a certain mental toll.

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

#48

Post by nullsense »

thick wrote: post #14

I would sincerely like to get a breakdown of all the factors that contribute to the Japanese living to such an old age, rather than the usual "this one weird trick" bullshit that Economist and others try to swindle on the Western readership. It's quite frankly annoying, although I've lost the last ounce of respect I've had for the Economist years ago so I'm the idiot for expecting them to be any better. I've gone thr…

Like the top comment suggests the one weird trick is the phenomenal level of group think based peer pressure.

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

#49

Post by jb1991 »

handmodel wrote: post #24

For what it's worth, Asian-Americans in New Jersey (and several other wealthy states) have a higher life expectancy than Japanese people in Japan. Source: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/08/asian-americans-men-in...

If you are going to pick a small arbitrary region of the country to compare, then I’m sure you could pick an arbitrary region of Japan to compare to New Jersey favorably.

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

#50

Post by solidsnack9000 »

thick wrote: post #14

I would sincerely like to get a breakdown of all the factors that contribute to the Japanese living to such an old age, rather than the usual "this one weird trick" bullshit that Economist and others try to swindle on the Western readership. It's quite frankly annoying, although I've lost the last ounce of respect I've had for the Economist years ago so I'm the idiot for expecting them to be any better. I've gone thr…

Seems like you have some divergent ideas here. On the one hand, you ask about practical, actionable stuff; on the other hand, you ask "How many consecutive generations of people living to 100 does it take before it happens at a regular basis.". The answer to the latter question is not something you can really use for anything.

I sometimes wonder if the right thing for westerners wouldn't just be a big sequence of photos of mid-tier Japanese restaurant food -- like what's served at train stations -- with all the components broken down, along with a description of how a person fits those things together every day to have complete story for food. After going there a few times, I was surprised by how much healthier I ate, and figured out how to reproduce some of the effect back in the United States.

One category of difference with Japanese diet is things that are somewhat healthier at baseline. That is the way Japanese junk food is. A mochi is pounded rice, sugar and beans; and many sweets are actually filled with bean paste. A common kind of savory Japanese snack is grilled seaweed.

Another category of difference is eating the same thing but just in slightly different proportions. It's quite common in the USA that you go somewhere and get a meal and it's literally a piece of meat and a potato. Even at a good restaurant; but especially at less expensive restaurants. This isn't about Japanese food versus other kinds of foods. If you got a German restaurant in Japan (they are somewhat more popular in Japan than in the USA) and you get a plate it will be like three different kinds of sausages (in small sizes) and one or two salads and one or two vegetable items.

This is not due to some kind of technical balancing or something like that; Japanese consumers just demand somewhat more varied food with more vegetables.

There isn't a recipe or some weights or formulas. I just went there for 1-2 weeks at a time 5-6 times and tried a bunch of food and got used to it, came back and then wondered about what I could do differently. Everything that has changed in my diet as a result is entirely a matter of small adjustments -- adding vegetables at certain times of day or something like that -- but I did lose weight and have enjoyed other benefits like no acid reflux, no food coma, &c.

Post reply on HN