Japan has 20,000 over 100 years old

[rawstory]

Found on the liberal alternative to Drudge, The Raw Story, http://www.rawstory.com

BBC: Japan hits record on centenarians

Veteran skiier Keizo Miura is one of Japan's more famous centenarians
Japan's ageing population has recorded another first - the number of centenarians has doubled in the last five years to more than 20,000.

A new government report also found that nearly one in five people is now over 65, a proportion that is set to rise to one in four by 2050.

The report underlined government worries about an over-burdened pension scheme as its population ages.

People are living longer thanks to improved diet and better medical care.

The report, issued by the Cabinet Office, said that at the end of September 2003, 20,561 Japanese were aged 100 or over, up from about 10,000 people in 1998.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3786045.stm

[progressivebydesign]

1. They have a good diet..

.. or they did, I'm sure it's been westernized by our lovely fast food corporations. Fish, veggies, and rice. Unless you're a sumo wrestler, there is not a ton of obesity there, either. Wish I liked fish... it's so damn healthy (okay, unless it comes from some of our polluted waters here in the U.S.)

[forgethell]

2. When will Dr.

Quacker publish his long awaited book, The Japanese Long-Life Fish and Seaweed Lifestyle Diet"?




}(

[Ripley]

3. Dr. Quacker already sells "coral calcium" from Japan

to suckers for enormous sums of money. I even have a stupid sister-in-law (how stupid? she thinks Iraqis flew the planes into the WTC) who swears the TV Doctor's Coral Calcium (supposedly collected safely from a reef...hah!) is responsible for her losing 30 pounds.

When asked if she did anything else? Oh yeah exercised for the first time in 30 years. :crazy:

[Bandit]

5. Actually our waters are less polluted than any other worldwide

That is not to say they are not polluted, just less so than in the rest of the world. Remember the French and the Russians dispose of all their nuclear waste in the Ocean. I'm sure they are not the only countries to do so either. When those steel barrels start oxidizing and the radioactive material escapes we are in big trouble. Right now though fish is still the cleanest and healthiest meat available anywhere. Especially salmon and halibut from the icy waters of Alaska.

[Ripley]

6. However, most people can't afford "wild" salmon from Alaska.

So the farm raised salmon and other fishies do carry high amounts of pollutants in them, from PCB's to Mercury. I love fish, but find it alarming that they're now warning pregnant women not to each certain fish and in very low amounts.

Another grim reminder of what deregulation is good for....polluted food. I heard that the PCB's get into the salmon through their feed! Why the hell is THAT allowed?

[Bandit]

7. That is a fallacy

Alaskans are actually giving away pink salmon and chum salmon. It is the highly sought after King Salmon that is high priced and a super delicacy but all Alaskan salmon are very high in Omega 3 and very tasty to boot.

[Ripley]

9. What is?

Wild salmon is not cheap! I do buy salmon and love it, but it's farm raised. I'm not talking King...just regular. I try to find a link...

In from Dr.Weil:

snip>

Maybe, especially if you’re Canadian. A recent study made headlines when researchers found elevated levels of PCBs in British Columbia farmed salmon. It found that salmon raised in pens along the seacoast and fed fishmeal pellets to fatten them up had far higher levels of most contaminants, containing nearly 10 times the toxic load of wild salmon.

PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) are a dangerous class of manufactured chemicals that persist in the environment for many years. They were widely used in industry until concern about their health effects led to a North American ban in the late 1970’s. PCBs have been linked to skin and liver damage, certain kinds of cancer, immune-system suppression, and reduced mental development in children.

Michael Easton, the geneticist who led the Canadian study, noted that the fish he tested had high residues of toxins because the feed used to fatten them and promote growth was full of PCBs and other pollutants. The fishmeal and fish oil fed to penned salmon can come from anywhere, including Third World regions where contaminants are not well regulated.

The U.S. population primarily uses farmed varieties coming from Norway and Chile, all of it called “Atlantic salmon” on menus and in markets.)

I’ve long recommended eating wild Alaskan salmon. Farmed salmon is lower in protein (because penned fish don’t get to build up their muscles), higher in saturated fat, and lower in desirable Omega-3 fatty acids than wild salmon. It also contains residues of antibiotics and other drugs farmers use to treat diseases that occur in the unnatural crowded conditions of pens. Salmon farming is also ecologically disastrous, since the diseases it generates infect (and might eventually decimate) wild populations; the wastes it produces pollute coastal waters; and the feed fish it requires hasten the depletion of the ocean’s resources. (It takes several pounds of feed fish to produce one pound of farmed salmon.)

Dr. Andrew Weil

<snip

I had the best salmon ever when I was in Alaska a few years ago. We took a floatplane ride to a cabin at the base of a glacier and they grilled some rare White King Salmon they caught in the waters outside the cabin that morning! Wish I could live up there in the summer...so quiet and clean.

[Bandit]

13. Salmon are so abundant they can not even sell them

We have so many salmon being caught that processers are unable to handle the product. They are not even buying pink salmon and chum salmon are going for a nickel a pound. I hardly find that too expensive. Granted the King Salmon is not cheap but compared to a good cut of beef it is not expensive especially when considering the health benefits. Silver salmon is almost as good as King salmon and about half the price. On a side note I prefer the Famous "white" King or as some call them Glacier Kings or Ivory Kings. They are a much richer fish with considerably more oil content. All five species in Alaska are great for your health and very delicious. I suppose though that if you live somewhere in the middle of the US they would never bother sending the cheaper salmon to the markets. It is really sad because they are so so good.

[BonjourUSA]

14. Just an information

The salmons and eels go up Rhine now till in Swiss, in middle of the most industrialized area of Europe. And in Germany, people take a bath in it.

For the nuclear plants our ecologists are very watchful.

We have only a problem in Bretagne with the pork breeding.

The fishers are coming back in the Paris center, but the Seine river is not completely clean. Perhaps five or ten years yet, and we will be able to take a bath.

The issue is still the nitrates, but the farmers quickly have to reduce the use

[Malva Zebrina]

12. I love fish, and living on the coast of Maine, have loved the freshness of

it all. It is really delicious. But have been turned off by the reports of Mercury infiltration in the fish population.

Isn't that sad?

I love salmon, and have enjoyed it for the last twenty years at least once a week. Have not had it more than twice this year.

[Beatrix]

4. I wouldn't want to live that long

would you? Just take a look at the pope.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[biftonnorton]

10. Any around Hiroshima or Nagasaki?

??

[newyawker99]

16. Hi biftonnorton!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Pillowbiter]

11. People, this is not just because of what they eat.

There are a number of other factors. Firstly being all medical care is free. Pre-emptive care is encouraged to avoid costly advanced stages of diseases, which also tend to be fatal.

You have a 10 times greater chance of dying from suicide in Japan than from murder.

What's also strange, is that the typical Japanese smokes like a factory, yet still they don't have as high a cancer rate as the rest of the world. Advanced treatment care may be one factor, but it may be that they aren't exposed to other environmental hazards that cause cancer in the US.

PB

[Beatrix]

15. Or genetics

certain people have certain genetic advantages than other people. For example, there is a group of people native to a part of the world (I believe on an island if I remember correctly) that have eye sight under water that is multiple times superior to everyone else in the world.

Could be the Japanese have genetic traits that increase life span. Also, they could have a lesser genetic risk for cancer.