Most Amount Of Centenarians In Japan? Not Very Peaty

[pboy]

this is why we need to take all the things Peat says (as well as other older wise people) into account when figuring health. Id say overall people in Japan are cleaner, have much better water, cleaner air, healthier fresher food, a more diverse diet nutrient wise on average, less irritants and additives in food, but the main things are a much stronger fundamentally rooted culture where people generally feel more close, peaceful, happy, less fear about their future, they take care of elders which is huge...they don't just end up in a nursing home like in the west, which is probably why they decide to keep going, stronger sense of value of detail in work and being useful in what you do, everything is generally set up more spacious and with a mind for plant placement, ponds, beautiful flowers, handmade art and furniture...rather than just boxed manufactured kind of stuff. Just the language alone is more of a descriptive style of speech...where you describe qualities instead of giving fixed labels and defintions...this leads to a more open minded, adaptable attitude. More art, they probably have more sex, people are generally not foul in manners or appearance. They walk, bike, and generally move more. They don't have any concept of god noah Abraham jew arab western paternalistic man in the sky thought tied into the fabric of their society...nor a history of it. They are way more in tune with nature in general. Maybe the fact they get more iodine, soy, fish, green tea...or whatever is said to be the reason, are probably all minor compared to the other things

 

[Such_Saturation]

The reason Japan "appears" to have more centenarians per capita has been explained by Peat several times in his interviews and some of his articles. I am a bit surprised that nobody has run into that explanation before, but here it is, and make sure to look at the studies cited at end of the Peat quote on the peatarian.com website:

http://peatarian.com/7626/yuzurihara-japan

That's quite telling. I think emigration trends would need some further investigation, though.

 

[Steffi]

I'd like to see more on that. From personal experience there seem to be a lot of factors at hand we don't see or who don't fit Peat.

Chinese become very old and stay very active and bright even if they live in all kinds of different countries. No milk. I mostly noticed that their food intake seems extremly sparse and lean. Tons of rice and greens. They work physically hard and stay tiny.

Philippines: Very few old and healthy. 80 is even good, 90 is very rare. Yet they eat all animals whole, lots of coconut and fruit, lots of animal fat, too. Lots of (condensed) milk. They should seemingly be rather healthy according to Peat! Now I mean in contrast to China and Japan they do have the tropical advantage of all the fruit all the time and they eat milk. But they all die younger. Their calorie intake is rather bigger.

Greece and southern Italy has also lots of old and healthy, some not so lean. But calorie-restricted some part of their lives.

No old Irish despite milk and potato-country.
Quite a lot of over 90 in fairly good condition in southern Germany who lived on ghee, flour, milk, eggs and cheese and veggies from the garden with lots of potatoes. Calorie-restricted some part of their lives.

I think the life expectancy must take a most severe dip in Europe. All the now old people started out living very natural with hard work. When modern food came around they were already old so even bad food couldn't cause too much damage any more, plus medicine. Now kids could never even get close to that kind of fresh and local nutrition. Plus there weren't any modern toxins in those days.

Darn, North America is a desolate food-desert. Not even milk is sold without something added.

 

[tigerlily96]

How very interesting, woud like more discussion on this.

 

[Blinkyrocket]

Honestly, I think mental stress has a lot to do with it, and honestly I don't care how long my life is but instead how good, take a look at this: http://gamapserver.who.int/mapLibrary/F ... 2.png?ua=1
Japan has a high rate of suicide, although they do commit suicide to defend their honor (seems a little over the top even still)
The philippines possibly has a low rate of suicide (all this shows is low rate of REPORTED suicide)

If you ask me, the cause of our health problems is mainly social, we worry about our social ranking and relationships. The japanese maybe outwardly calm but they're obsessed with honor so whether or not they actually live long, from this map we can conclude that their quality was not good even if their quantity was.

 

[YuraCZ]

In regards to eating chicken and flour it is most likely a recent development that appeared after world war II. There also seems to be a relation to iodine and PUFA, ie. if you get enough iodine it might offset some of the negative effects of PUFA.

I would also take into account that certain parts of the diet weren't common place until very recently as they used to be more expensive due to lack of refining processes and efficient fishing.

So those who are old now might have been living on a much different diet to the more modern Japanese individuals. It's impossible to take the current general diet and apply it to those who were born over 90-100 years ago and are most likely living on a very old fashioned diet.

In short, there are many factors and taking generalities and applying them to a certain subset will most likely paint a very biased(and wrong) picture.

Yeah they all ate almost exclusively white rice + veggies and some meat fish and they were pretty healthy people. How is that possible when they ate this fattening starch?

 

[TeslaFan]

Japan -> Green tea -> Theanine -> Anti-serotonin -> very Peaty

In addition, Theanine is added to almost every chewing gum, soft drink, etc in Japan.

 

[Blinkyrocket]

Not giving a good name to theanine in light of that suicide map up there :P Japan is in the deepest red in terms of suicide, hope those ppl were just the few who somehow didn't get theanine in their diet.

 

[nikotrope]

Japan -> Green tea -> Theanine -> Anti-serotonin -> very Peaty

In addition, Theanine is added to almost every chewing gum, soft drink, etc in Japan.

Let's also talk about thiamine.

http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/vitamins/thiamin

The presence of anti-thiamin factors (ATF) in foods also contributes to the risk of thiamin deficiency. Certain plants contain ATF, which react with thiamin to form an oxidized, inactive product. Consuming large amounts of tea and coffee (including decaffeinated), as well as chewing tea leaves and betel nuts, have been associated with thiamin depletion in humans due to the presence of ATF. Thiaminases are enzymes that break down thiamin in food. Individuals who habitually eat certain raw freshwater fish, raw shellfish, and ferns are at higher risk of thiamin deficiency because these foods contain thiaminase that normally is inactivated by heat in cooking.

In addition, the more refined carbs one eat (white rice), the more thiamine they need.

And thiamine depletion is related to depression (among so many things it's hard to list). I think it's one of the reasons Japanese people are suicidal, they are depressed and lack energy to oppose their bosses/managers and get stressed by overworking and doing things they don't want.

 

[jyb]

And thiamine depletion is related to depression (among so many things it's hard to list). I think it's one of the reasons Japanese people are suicidal, they are depressed and lack energy to oppose their bosses/managers and get stressed by overworking and doing things they don't want.

I could see other factors to explain this behaviour like the society itself... But on a similar vein I've read opinions that magnesium requirements are also increased. But if you compare OJ and rice, if you assume that all those nutrients in OJ are needed to good carb utilisation, then obviously you conclude that rice is extremely nutrient deficient.

 

[pboy]

the fact they still are doing well despite a diet high in muscle meat and rice means they have to be doing a lot of the other things very well comparatively

 

[Such_Saturation]

100 is pretty young for a human

 

[Makrosky]

Someone asked him similar question in a KMUD interview
about higher life expectancy in Japan.
RP replied that these are propaganda based on adjusted data.
Apparently most countries do not publish real data anymore.
The magic of statistics and mathematical modeling.

This is just ridiculous. So RP uses the data when fits his theories and dismisses it when it doesn't. Wow.

There's a very simple explanation for the Japan longevity : THERE ARE MANY APPROACHES TO GOOD HEALTH.

And the fact that RP could have created good research, theories and a diet/supps that work quite well doesn't mean he's god, he has the last world, his diet will save the planet or anything like that. He's just one more researcher.

Maybe accepting that RP's diet is by far not the best BUT it works quite good for lots of people would be a good starting point ?

I can think of a dozen reasons Japan people would live longer than US/Europeans that don't involve the diet, starting with the most simple : GENETICS.

 

[Such_Saturation]

simple

 

[Makrosky]

Such_Saturation, It's a simple explanation: Call it genetics, call it racial differences, call it constitution, whatever.

What it won't be simple (not even possible I think) is trying to apply the ultra-reductionist point of view of trying to find a unique, mighty, holy single GENE or group of genes that will explain it.

I'm not sure people realizes the actual state of science might be *consistenly* explaining .. what ? 1% of human physiology ?

 

[Such_Saturation]

Well what do you think modifies the constitution?

 

[Makrosky]

Well what do you think modifies the constitution?

Hundreds of yet unknown factors that is for sure.

Doctors from 200 years ago will laugh at us if we provided them with some scientific facts we get for granted now. What do you think the next Ryan Pate in 200 years will think about all the facts we get granted right now ? He will laugh at us.

This is a very long philosophical/antropological debate. People in this forum try to see the infraestructure (diet for instance) causing the superestructure (social traits depening on tryptophan/serotonin intake, for instance). Others have stated it's the opposite. The discussion is non sense, it's a dog biting his tail. It is non sense because it depends the goggles you put on to watch the world. It's an intelectual frame that you superimpose over reality to make some sense. To order the chaos.

I'm applying RP's theories/practice and see if they do me good (so far so good btw) but I won't try to explain the whole world/universe with his theories.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Well what do you think modifies the constitution?

Hundreds of yet unknown factors that is for sure.

So genetics are not a reason, wouldn't we say?

 

[Makrosky]

Well what do you think modifies the constitution?

Hundreds of yet unknown factors that is for sure.

So genetics are not a reason, wouldn't we say?

I would say the usual suspects play an important role : genetics, climate, stress, diet, etc. but are far from being the only explanation. Not only that but "genetics", "stress", "diet", all this concepts CHANGE as the years go by.

We thrive to order the chaos. We try to clutch at every theory and paradigm to explain the things out there but that is gonna be always incomplete.

I am wondering : Does anybody really thinks we'll get a complete theory of why Japanese live longer than us ?

Just to be clear : I am not discrediting RP's theories. I'm gradually applying them to my health with apparently good success. All I'm trying to say is to put it in perspective and accept it as a very limited intelectual frame to describe the world. To not think RP's theories are final. To open the possibility it's not the best diet/advice at all, although it works.

Just to phantasize a little bit : RP talks about water retaining structure. What if the Japanese water has some particular structure that conferes them more longevity (via whatever physiological mechanism) ? This sounds stupid, right ? Image explaining to a scientist from 150 years ago they have more longevity because they don't eat PUFA.

 

[Makrosky]

There's a current minoritarian theory (at least as minoritarian as some RP's theories) that says genetical changes happen in "big chunks" suddenly. It's not a gradual process of micro changes like Darwin said.

Now for a little bit more of phantasy:
What if for an underteminated factor, a comet radiation for instance, there was a massive jump in Japanese genetics all at once that confered them more longevity ?