Japanese Still Have Longest Lifespans In World - Report -- That Despite Smoking, Drinking
TOKYO - Japanese men and women still have the longest lifespans in the world and are continuing to put distance between themselves and residents of other nations.
To celebrate Respect for the Aged Day, the Japanese government last week released its annual report on longevity.
Japanese women on average live to 82.51 years, up seven months since 1990, according to the survey. They live 18 months longer than women in France, Switzerland, Iceland or Sweden, who hold down the second through fifth spots, respectively. U.S. women on average live to 79.1 years.
Men in Japan average 76.25 years
Japanese men average 76.25 years, four months better than in 1990 and a half-year longer than the men of Iceland, their nearest challenger. Sweden, Hong Kong and Israel rounded out the top five. U.S. men live only to 72.2 years.
The world has marveled at the remarkable lifespans of the Japanese since they passed the Swedes for the top spot in 1980. Numerous studies have looked at their diet, personal habits and genetic makeups in hopes of discovering the secret of their longevity.
The search has sometimes seemed like a fool's errand, given that a high proportion of the Japanese population smokes and drinks, often late into the evening in restaurants or bars, where they go to unwind from long stress-filled days. Can these people really live the longest in the world?
"The Japanese people have been drinking and smoking a lot more over the last 10 or 20 years, so maybe it will show up in the data," said Shigesato Takahashi, a demographer at the Ministry of Health and Welfare. "But it hasn't yet."
Takahashi's recent study of old-age mortality for Princeton University's Office of Population Research cited changes in Japan's diet and improvement in its living standards for the spectacular rise in longevity since World War II, when men and women lived on average less than 60 years.
Better nutrition, central heating, the spread of indoor plumbing and a national health-care system nearly eliminated infant mortality and sharply curtailed deaths from tuberculosis, pneumonia, bronchitis and gastro-enteritis, which had been major killers in Japan before the war. But those gains tapered off by the mid-1960s.
Almost all the gains since - as Japan sprinted into the world lead - came from a sharp reduction in the number of deaths from cerebrovascular disease, more commonly known as strokes.
Strokes once were the leading killer in Japan, but now they occur at a quarter of the 1965 rate and rank below cancer and heart disease, traditionally at very low levels in Japan, as a leading cause of death.
"The Japanese always ate a lot of salty foods," said Takahashi. "But the government has had a major anti-stroke campaign (focusing on diet), and it has pretty much succeeded."
Anyone who has eaten a traditional Japanese meal can see the problem. Next to the heavily salted pickles are several varieties of heavily salted fish. And to make sushi go down a little easier, it can be dipped in soy sauce, which has a high sodium content.
But salt wasn't the only problem leading to Japan's disproportionately high number of strokes. Studies have shown that people with low serum cholesterol levels are more prone to strokes. People with a traditional Japanese diet ate virtually none of the fatty foods that would get serum cholesterol in their bloodstreams.
So as the postwar generation put Western foods like meat, eggs and other sources of animal protein in their daily diets, it had a doubly positive effect. It replaced some of the traditional salty foods, and gave the average Japanese at least some "good" cholesterol.
The researchers now fear the positive effects may have run their course. "An important issue facing the Japanese medical community is whether further increases (in fat intake) will have negative consequences, such as increased risks of heart disease and elevated risks of some cancers such as breast and colon cancers," the report said.
Cigarettes and alcohol - notorious contributors to early mortality - remain the big question marks over the future direction of the average Japanese lifespan.
While smoking has declined since the 1950s and '60s when nearly 80 percent of men smoked, it remained at 60.4 percent last year, thought to be the highest level in the industrialized world. About 13.3 percent of women smoked.
Daily consumption also was quite high, with the average man smoking 24.4 cigarettes a day. The average woman smoked 17.2 cigarettes.
Death from lung cancer high
Death rates from lung cancer are already higher than other industrialized nations, and they are expected to rise substantially by 2000, the report said, along with associated cancers of the oral cavity, esophagus, larynx, pancreas and bladder. (Stomach cancer - those salty foods again - still kills more people each year than lung cancer.)
Heavier alcohol consumption is starting to push Japanese heart disease rates up, the report said. Imbibers have increased their drinking for seven straight years, with per-capita consumption measured in pure alcohol now at 6.5 liters a year, or 120 percent higher than a decade ago. Japan's drinkers are only slightly behind the U.S. pace.
But those statistics may be deceiving, Takahashi said. Recent studies have suggested that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol on a daily basis can actually improve cardiovascular circulation - witness France's enviable longevity statistics.