[thick]

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 through pop diet literature like How Not To Die, Blue Zone, and others, but it's mostly just people trying to push an agenda in one way or another. I just want the facts, in somewhat of plain as English as possible but I don't mind some technical fluff if it will help clarify things. I tend to find in a lot of this sort of literature that the technical fluff is useless to majority of the readership and yet takes up 80%+ of the content, as the authors try to use as many half-baked analogies and metaphors as they can to explain technical concepts that nobody cares about. At the same time, something more substantial than "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants" would be welcome. You know, how does exercise play a part in it. How does ancestry that has also lived to an old age play a part in it. Is it kind of a big deal, or nice to have? How many consecutive generations of people living to 100 does it take before it happens at a regular basis. These sorts of things. Holistic analysis that compares more than just "Wim Hof has slightly more brown fat than most people and that's the reason why he is superhuman" level of nonsense.

The latest bit seems to be from longevity research where cold showers and fasting are in vogue again, for the Nth time. Oh, but our company is the only one that provides this one unique test that checks your age biomarkers. We didn't just name drop the company in there for the sake of baiting you into it or anything.

Why is it so bloody hard?

[ip26]

I think the short answer is quite simply nobody really knows.

Your best bet IMO is to ignore genetics (can't change it), pick a "Blue Zone", and emulate what you can- within reason. This is something we still haven't solved, so the next best thing is to try to follow a proven playbook. You could call it cargo cult'ing, but until we crack the code it's the best we've got.

Then you can sprinkle in rock-solid conventional knowledge, for example we're pretty much dead-certain that exercise is good for you and time in nature improves your well-being.

[toshk]

Blue zones are pretty cherry picked to fit the narrative of the authors.

[ip26]

Your criticism about cherry-picking is relevant if you are trying to distill the secret ingredients of longevity. However, I'm saying just forget about all that. Pick a healthful region of your choosing with proven long-term success, and emulate it as possible/reasonable. The end.

[DrRobinson]

I haven't read it so I'm curious, what makes you say that? Is the book concluding things that are wrong because of this?

[agumonkey]

The more I try to read, the less I know, the more I believe the answer is:

     - eat few
     - eat varied
     - move more
     - be with others
     - sleep nice

Basically, avoid modern lifestyle advice.

[DrRobinson]

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 healthier for longer as well.

If you're interested, make sure to check out the longevity subreddit[0], some longevity discords[1][2]. Also make sure to read Lifespan by Dr. David Sinclair[3] and/or Ageless by Dr.Andrew Steele[4]

Some other things to keep an eye on:

  - Blood pressure
  - Resting heart rate
  - Brush teeth twice a day
  - Reduce meat
  - Don't smoke
  - Reduce alcohol
  - Avoid stress
  - Your mental health

--

0. https://www.reddit.com/r/longevity

1. https://discord.gg/HwTX7gR

2. https://discord.gg/ftSbffu

3. https://www.amazon.com/Lifespan-Why-Age-Dont-Have/dp/0008380...

4. https://andrewsteele.co.uk/ageless/ (not yet released in the US)

X. Longevity knowledgebase: https://brain.forever-healthy.org/display/EN/Longevity+Strat...

[agumonkey]

Thanks for the links.

ps: the discords are a bit slow activity though IIRC

[ford_o]

Why brushing teeth is so important?

[agumonkey]

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

[_laiq]

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

[agumonkey]

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 work practices) to have leisure.

When I did simpler but physically demanding jobs, I ate simpler, went to bed early because I was simply cooked but it didn't feel like stress, but good fatigue (the kind you have after long swim session).

Modern jobs also turn you against each other way too often. I firmly believe there's a huge amount of benefits of doing simple chores in team, rather than ruminating in your cubicle delaying answers in mails..

[faceplanted]

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.

[agumonkey]

Let's not play on words. Consumerism sell you promises of better life which turned out to be false most often. It might only be an implicit advice but anyway.

[snovv_crash]

If you watch TV, isn't that basically what all the ads tell you? Eat fast food, watch this show, play this game?

[adrianN]

It comes with sitting 45 hours a week in an office and trying to cram as much activity as possible in the remaining day.

[corobo]

Literally sitting at a computer working from home during a pandemic right now.. yes

[solidsnack9000]

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.

[astrange]

Do all Japanese actually eat that healthy? I can believe it of some of them, but there’s little fruit and many salarymen seem to live on a diet of fried chicken, hard liquor and cigarettes.

[carlmr]

>many salarymen seem to live on a diet of fried chicken, hard liquor and cigarettes.

That's what surprised me the most visiting Japan. All the skinny people in Japan eating fried chicken, fried mashed potatoes, fried everything.

The only thing I could make out for why they were skinny was insane levels of portion control. Since they definitely didn't have time to do sports.

[HungSu]

Also a tremendous amount of walking. Japanese urban planning is much more pedestrian friendly than say, almost anywhere in the US.

[stefap2]

US has a problem with activity. No sidewalks, go everywhere by car except in a few big cities.

[carlmr]

Europe has that, too but we're not that skinny.

[joachim4]

But Western European diet "americanized" itself a lot recently. For example in France, some of the staple meals are burgers, tacos[0] and kebab.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_tacos

[solidsnack9000]

They are eating a lot of other food, actually; and that's why it works.

[solidsnack9000]

This does not really comport with the restaurant menus that I saw.

When you say they seem to live off this diet, what are you basing that on?

[zkirill]

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.

[activatedgeek]

I tried searching for one a few months ago when my Economist subscription was expiring. Unfortunately, not even a single one comes close.

The Atlantic is often advertised as the other high-quality publication. The target audience, however, is overwhelmingly the US. Economist makes me feel like other countries exist, and there is enough going on outside the US.

On the ideological front, I fell into this trap of finding a periodical with little bias towards the political left or the political right. While Economist touts itself to be centre, it would be naive to take them at face value as they clearly are centre-left. The silver lining is that they are far better than others who make absolutely no efforts to quell their suppress their ideological biases (e.g. New York Times).

I call this a trap because I've since realized that it is virtually impossible to expect a "truly" unbiased publication. As long as I feel that I am not falling into an echo chamber, I am fine with biases. Politically charged articles generally have more than one perspectives.

One would be hard-pressed to find a single publication as diverse as the Economist. I think this is primarily a historical artifact - they just have had a significant first-mover advantage (I think) and have accumulated a solid bunch of human capital. I'm slowly inclining towards subscribing to more niche publications instead.

Financial Times is a reasonable contender, though far more costlier.

[ValentineC]

> Economist makes me feel like other countries exist, and there is enough going on outside the US.

I think it helps that the Economist is not headquartered in the US, but in the UK.

(The Financial Times has its headquarters in the UK too.)

[peteretep]

> they clearly are centre-left

They’re Liberal, not Left.

[miguel_rdp]

I’d say they’re liberal in the European sense, not the American sense

[gautamcgoel]

I've personally found the Atlantic to be essentially a pseudointellectual Buzzfeed. Same clickbaity titles and bullshit, just with a high-brow spin.

[thegjp210]

The Economist is quite simply the best news magazine in existence. Imperfect but the least bad. Foreign Affairs is entirely an entirely different publication made of collections of topical essays on foreign policy

[deet]

It's not a competitor to the Economist, but for general scientific topics including some health information Scientific American would be a step up in depth and coverage, while not being as dense as real journals or Science, Nature, etc.

[ampdepolymerase]

If something is truly genetically linked then dieting for you might as well be lipstick on a pig if you don't have the right heritage. There are a couple other places in Asia with similar levels of longevity. Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea come to mind. Maybe look into what similarities they share with Japan. For Europe there are the usual Mediterranean countries, including Israel. (For European demographics, remember to adjust for large numbers because population size vary wildly.)

[latch]

Isn't Okinawa a good place to start? You get two interesting comparisons: Okinawans vs other Japanese during the last century, and Okinawans then vs now. It reduces the number (or at least the scale) of differences so that you can better pinpoint the factors, right?

[howlgarnish]

Interestingly enough, Okinawa has the highest life expectancy in Japan. They also really got the short end of the stick during WW2 though (a third of the civilian population died during the US invasion), so this may be a statistical/survival of the fittest type quirk too, plus the historically the local diet there was fairly different to the rest of the Japan (lots of pork, less seafood, sweet potato/taro instead of rice, chillies, bitter melon, etc).

[latch]

According to wikipedia, Okinawan men now have a life expectancy below the Japanese average for men. Which is why I think it's useful to look at.

[howlgarnish]

TIL! Looks like that flipped around 2000: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18924533/

This goes into some more detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa_diet#Longevity

[teraku]

That's because lots of US troops are stationed in Okinawa and with them came lots of fast food chains. Young(er) people in Okinawa eat lots of junk food, and they have shorter life expenctancy than their parents.

[Terretta]

The blue zone studies and conclusions seem, to me, to be the opposite of “one weird trick” and run in the face of pop diet literature.

At some point, a holistic lifestyle offering statistically higher quality of health outcomes could risk sounding like an agenda, I suppose, but perhaps only if something about that lifestyle makes one feel guilty.

As you go into particular questions, you might find the material around blue zones goes more into those than most. Along with temperance and mostly plants, commonalities included natural exercise and positive disposition, for example.

Or perhaps, is our disdain of the simple holistic findings a result of our convenience culture? Are we actually just unhappy there is not one weird trick, preferably in a tablet form, that wouldn’t inconvenience our own “modern” ways?

Disclosure: My mother’s side had many siblings making it to 100, some were part of the California blue zone, while others lived in Scandinavia, farming and fishing by the sea. The realization these lives are differently healthy is hardly pop: there’s a body of health knowledge behind that tracing back to late 1800s, Kellogg (the family behind the cereal whose home page now says “one of the original plant-based wellbeing companies”), and the like.

[Blikkentrekker]

> 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.

Why is it that the term “western" is so often at some point introduce with some implication some culturally cohesive unit called “the west” exists any time Japan in particular is mentioned somewhere?

I find that very often when this happens, and when attributes of this supposed “western” culture are listed, it seems to mostly mean “The Anglo-Saxon world”, not so much “the west”.

The last time it happened on H.N. where someone complained about a sensationalist “western" article about Japan, it was pointed out that it was posted in a Japanese newspaper, and a translation from an original Japanese article, however sensationalist it might be.

Other than that, yes, there is probably not a single simple rule that governs it but a myriad of factors that contribute with many no doubt also working in the opposite direction, such as Japan's famously stressful workplace life and the high suicide rate of office workers.

[chadcmulligan]

Like you I've had the same experience, then I started using an app recently called chronometer [1], you type in what you eat and it tells you how much of the RDI of vitamins you get. There were a lot I was missing out on I found, also, at the same time I was trying to move to a Mediterranean diet.

A diet of a lot more plants like the Mediterranean diet meant I met all my RDI's, whereas a normal meat and 3 veg, cereal for breakfast western diet didn't - things like vitamin E and so on were a lot easier to get with the Mediterranean diet, though for things like Zinc I had to start eating nuts and so on - something I'd never done much.

It surprised me that the things that seem to stop cancer (according to some studies) were exactly the same things that are more prevalent in the Mediterranean diet, it became a bit of a no brainer. Give it a go (I'm just a happy customer - its free any way with a paid tier)

[1] https://cronometer.com

[deeviant]

The Mindspan Diet, by Preston Estep has a lot to say about the Japanese diet. I think he makes many convincing arguments. Some key take-aways: Iron is very bad for longevity, refined carbs that aren't sugar and that have relatively low glycemic indexes (long grained rice and many pastas) are actually quite good (rice/pasta), meat bad but seafood ok, don't over do the saturated fat in general, drink moderate alcohol if at all.

I got a lot from How Not to Diet. I also got a lot from the Mindspan diet. I think the truth is out there, but as you have already put it, it's pretty bloody hard to get anything definitive. It's hard because it takes decades to prove anything and it's hard because food is big business and entrenched food production pipelines protect themselves against disruption the best they can (looking at you, sugar industry).

[saiya-jin]

Seafood specifically can't be judged as some ideal one 200 years ago prior to oceans pollution. If you want to pick up seafood which is not heavily contaminated by heavy metals, various regional spills, factory drains, near deltas of biggest rivers in Asia/Africa etc. you will find out you just play russian roulette with your food. Mercury poisoning with ie tuna can be achieved relatively quickly depending on the brand. Pregnant women should probably avoid things like salmon & tuna completely, the benefits are far outweighted by the crap. Farmed sea fish are properly bad food.

Freshwater fish can be better but they are almost 100% farmed, and good luck trusting some farmer with what he feeds them, since infections in overpopulated ponds are very frequent. Fish meat reflects what its being fed, so crappy food makes previously healthy fish into more bacon one.

Also meat is not an uniform substance, cheap beef is most probably less healthy than lean bio free range turkey. Also depends on the cuts, pork has very lean and very fatty tissues in the same animal. And so on.

I'd say for the food the quantity, timing, being active every day for longer stretch, calm peaceful life and obviously not much poisons/addictions makes up more than rest. We have centenarians in the west too. At least that's the best effort, if one has crappy genes with high probability of cancer or heart attack before 50, there are sadly some limits these days. But one can and should still maximize their own potential.

[deeviant]

I'm mostly a vegetarian except that I do take molecularly distilled fish oil. Very simple way to get some of the health benefits of seafood consumption but take no risk.

However, I actually feel mercury isn't nearly the bugaboo that vegan proponents often make it out to be. High ocean mercury levels have been a thing for over 100 years. Yet a great many studies have found seafood to be beneficial to longevity and overall health.

All of your points sound like vegan talking points, but to each their own.

[M5x7wI3CmbEem10]

I'm assuming one underestimated facet is the nonviolent culture. Many injuries due to violence in the U.S. go unreported, leading to chronic health problems which can further cause mental health problems.

[didibus]

> Why is it so bloody hard

It takes 100 years to get one data-point. For us to track a person's habit throughout their life that eventually ends up living to 100 years is not an easy or quick task.

And even if you had the best tracking in place, isolating cause and effect given how so many variables are involved is no easy task either.

So instead we have to rely on small experiments, low sample size studies, and studies where variables are hard to isolate.

But there's a lot that's known that's pretty clear, exercice is good, cardio or strength or flexibility, they all seem good. We don't know how much of it is needed, but more doesn't seem to hurt.

Having lower body fat, eating at a slight deficit, that's pretty clear as well.

Cutting out bad nutrients, chemicals, processed foods, etc. That's not totally proven, but at least it helps with weight control, and it definitely doesn't seem to be beneficial, so at best it's neutral at worst harmful.

Pollution of all kinds has negative effects. That's pretty well established. Nothing much you can do about it since about everywhere and everything is polluted it seems nowadays.

Having low stress and good nights of sleep, that seems pretty well established as well.

Genetics, ya genetics for sure. But can't do anything about it so no reason to worry about it.

Now eating good foods also help. There's ton of micro-nutrients with small studies that show benefits. So just make sure you eat plenty of all kind of good micro-nutrients. You'll get the most out of vegetables, legumes, fruits, herbs, seeds, nuts, and all that. Fatty fish are good, and other fish and seafood have some good micro-nutrients as well. Except the larger the fish, the more pollutant it contains, so don't exaggerate either on fish.

Meats are uncertain. At least keep them on the lower side, especially red meat since there might be links with some form of cancers. That said, if you do eat meat, make sure it's grass fed and all, cause meet from grass fed animals have way more good micro-nutrients in them.

Also seems you want to keep your brain active as well, continue to learn new things, helps prevent dementia and other brain degenerative issues.

Apparently good company, having people to laugh and socialize with is good as well, but unsure how much, again it clearly doesn't hurt and might be good.

That's it, but, the sad part of all this, all those things just help a little bit, mostly with quality of life and not that much with longetivity. What has helped the most with longetivity has been modern medicine and surgeries, which is pretty much the single reason why people live longer now then before.

Edit: Oh and it also seems that there are other things that can affect you a lot, like which bacteria and viruses you've been exposed too thorought your life at different stages. Exposure to these can be good or bad depending.

I also forgot good amount of fibers can prevent diverticulitis and other possible digestive issues. Proper levels of vitamins (best if obtained from foods), including D (which is best obtained from the sun). Good hydration (helps some of your organs function). And amortize sugar intake, so you don't spike your blood sugars.

[imgabe]

It's probably mostly genetics. Stay active and avoid obvious garbage food.

[nullsense]

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

[lemoncurd]

read deep nutrition, i can summarize sinple. eat all kinda meat, organ, muscle all of it, egg and milk also good. plants have evolved to protect themselves using chemicals so they're bad. seed oils are the root of all evil and illness. good nutrition of ancestors means better looks for next generation.

[astrange]

Eating “chemicals” designed to defend against nonhuman species isn’t going to be bad for you. That includes capsaicin and caffeine which are if anything healthy. There’s also the xenohormesis effect, if you believe in that, where small amounts of poison are good for your defenses.

[M5x7wI3CmbEem10]

I think they're talking about goitrogens.

[astrange]

Could be, but it sounded more like a naturalistic fallacy. Though lately people opposed to plants are upset about phytoestrogens turning them into women, which they don’t do, as far as I know.

Seed oils being bad may be correct, but I haven’t looked up specifically what’s supposedly bad about them.