Fabric of a long life - Okinawa in Japan

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Fabric of a long life - Okinawa in Japan

JoAnn Guest

Dec 16, 2003 14:37 PST

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Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY

 

Ushi Okushima, 100, makes her own rice wine, fortified with mugwort.

OGIMI, Japan —

 

Juan Ponce de Leon and James Hilton had it all wrong.

The fountain of youth isn't in Florida, where 16th-century Spanish

explorer Ponce de Leon went searching for it. And Shangri-la isn't

stuck way up in the Himalayas, where Hilton, author of Lost Horizon,

placed his fictional paradise, whose inhabitants never aged.

 

The nearest thing to a real-life refuge from the ravages of old age

and death is here on the Japanese island of Okinawa in the East

China Sea.

 

The Japanese live longer than anyone else, and Okinawans live longer

than anyone else in Japan. The Japanese government says 457

Okinawans are at least 100 years old — 34.7 centenarians for every

100,000 islanders, highest ratio in the world. The USA has about 10

centenarians for every 100,000 people. Life expectancy is 81.2 years

on Okinawa, longest in the world. New figures show that the average

Okinawan woman lives to 86 and the average man to 78.

 

Okinawans don't just live longer, they live better. According to

recent studies, the elderly here appear to have far lower rates of

dementia than their U.S. counterparts and suffer less than half the

risk for hip fractures. Some Okinawan centenarians even claim they

are still having sex. Researchers aren't so sure about that. But

Okinawan elders clearly do things other old folks can't. Martial

artist Seikichi Uehara was 96 when he defeated a thirtysomething ex-

boxing champion in a nationally televised match two years ago, later

explaining that his opponent " had not yet matured enough to beat

me. " Nabi Kinjo became a local legend when she hunted down a

poisonous snake and killed it with a fly swatter. She was 105.

 

The rest of the world is at last beginning to learn about this

phenomenon. The Okinawa Program — based on 25 years of research — is

a best seller and has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

 

The good news: The key to Okinawa's astounding record — good eating —

 

can be copied in the USA. " The foods are also in the States, if

people consume them in the right balance, " says Craig Willcox, a

medical anthropologist at the Okinawa Prefectural University College

of Nursing. He is co-author of The Okinawa Program along with his

twin brother, Bradley, of the Harvard Medical School, and longevity

expert Makoto Suzuki.

 

For centuries, Okinawa has been known for people who live long and

well. On the outskirts of Ogimi, carved into a stone marker facing

the sea, is an old Okinawan saying: " At 70 you are still a child, at

80 a young man or woman. And if at 90 someone from Heaven invites

you over, tell him: 'Just go away, and come back when I am 100.' "

 

Even for Okinawa, this fishing and farming village is unique. Six of

Ogimi's 3,500 residents are 100 years old or older — a rate equal to

171 centenarians per 100,000. And local officials think the figure

would be higher if it included natives who have left the village.

 

Villager Ushi Okushima, 100, has been known to outdrink the young

journalists who come to interview her about the village's health

secrets. She recently left an inebriated TV film crew sleeping in

her living room. Okushima believes the secret to her longevity is

awamori, the local rice wine she seasons with mugwort and drinks

every night at bedtime. " It helps my sleep, " she says. " I sleep well

after I drink. "

 

Meeting at an Ogimi restaurant, she hands over bottles of her

homemade brew to visitors. " When I was young — 50 or 60 — I would

drink a full glass, " she says. " Sometimes I'd drink with friends and

couldn't find my way home. " These days, she has a teacupful or two.

Okushima's awamori may be a powerful elixir, but scientists say the

key to the health of Okinawan elders is more conventional: They eat

remarkably healthy food.

 

The traditional Okinawan diet is heavy on grains, fish and

vegetables,

and light on meat and dairy food.

 

The Okinawans are especially enthusiastic eaters of tofu. Ogimi

villagers like to mix it with seaweed in a concoction called " mooi

tofu. " Eating tofu and other soy products works wonders because non-

gmo

soybeans are loaded with flavonoids — nutrients known to fight

breast and prostate cancer and believed to combat heart disease.

 

Okinawans also consume lots of fish. Fish — particularly cold-water

varieties such as no-sodium tuna, mackerel and alaskan salmon —

contains

high

concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids, which reduce the risk of

heart disease and breast cancer.

 

They steer clear of artery-clogging meats and dairy products.

Results are astounding: Compared with the USA, death rates are 82%

lower for coronary heart disease, 86% lower for prostate cancer, 57%

lower for ovarian cancer and 82% lower for breast cancer.

 

" Simply put, " write Program authors, " if Americans lived more like

the Okinawans, we would have to close down 80% of the coronary care

units and one-third of the cancer wards in the United States, and a

lot of nursing homes would be out of business. "

 

Unfortunately, younger Okinawans and those who have left the island

largely have abandoned the good habits.

 

About 100,000 Okinawans moved to Brazil and quickly adopted the

eating regimen of their new home, one heavy on red meat.

 

Result: The life expectancy of the Brazilian Okinawans is 17 years

lower than Okinawa's 81 years, Suzuki says.

 

The younger generation goes to the fast-food outlets that surround

U.S. military bases. The change has had devastating results:

Okinawans younger than 50 have Japan's highest rates of obesity,

heart disease and premature death.

 

At least some things never change. Ushi Okushima's daughter Kikue is

74 and a social worker.

 

She says her 100-year-old mother still treats her the way she did

nearly seven decades ago. " She criticizes my hairstyle, " she sighs.

" She still talks to me like I'm a small kid. "

 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2002-01-03-usat-okinawa.htm

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