book
excerpt
Living to
KYLE CHRISTY/© 2007 CABLE NEWS NETWORK
a Hundred
USHI OKUSHIMA HAS never missed a day of
work at the bustling farmer’s market in Okinawa.
She can be counted on to have a bushel of the
island’s trademark small green oranges for sale. In
addition to being a reliable presence, Okushima is
very popular with the tourists, who often snap pictures and shake hands with the friendly fruit seller.
Sometimes they ask to touch her snowy white hair.
The reason Okushima creates such a stir among the
island’s visitors is her age. She is 103 years old. That
is certainly remarkable by most standards, but not
necessarily for the Okinawans. Residents of the 160
islands that comprise Okinawa are more likely to
reach one hundred than people living anywhere else
on the planet. Even in Japan, which boasts the
longest average life span in the world, Okinawans
stand out.
For starters, heart disease, stroke, and cancer
occur at a lower frequency on Okinawa than anywhere in the world. Prostate cancer is unusual, and
breast cancer is so rare, most women do not even
require mammograms. You don’t need advanced
medical tests to see that many Okinawans, like
Okushima, remain mentally and physically spry—
and living independently—long past the age when
devastating medical problems frequently trouble
their counterparts in the United States and elsewhere around the world. On Okinawa, which lies
between the main Japanese islands and Taiwan,
there were 699 centenarians out of a population of
1. 3 million in 2005, or 51 for every 100,000 people.
Compare that to the United States, where there are
only about 10 centenarians per 100,000 people.
It should come as no surprise that Okinawa has
been a hotbed of aging research for decades.
Scientists have drawn Okinawans’ blood, taken their
heart rates and blood pressure, scrutinized their
diets and social interactions, interviewed them at
length about their lives and their philosophy on
life—all in an effort to learn what makes the
islanders maintain such good health for so long. The
question, of course, is whether they are genetically
predestined to live longer, or whether there is something about the way they live that could benefit the
rest of us. Simply put, can we live longer by becoming more like the Okinawans?
To answer the first
question: Do Okinawans
possess a “longevity gene?”
The answer appears to be
no. We know this for a
simple reason. Okinawans
who move away and adopt
the lifestyle of their new
country quickly develop life
spans in line with their neighbors. That suggests their
longevity results from the
way Okinawans live and not
to some genetic protection
against the ravages of age. That
means we should be able to learn
a thing or two from them. So how
do they live?
Well, this came as a surprise to
me, but Okinawans do not enjoy an
easy life. In fact, the word retirement
does not even exist in the traditional
Okinawan dialect. They work hard
from an early age and don’t stop
working. C
giveaways
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