I have long been curious about the unusually long lifespan of the Japanese. Of course there are tiny tribes that have longer lifespans but it is irrelevant compared to a population of 122 million people.
I've also been forced to disregard the issue of diet causing longevity because I know how my American diet prejudices resemble the views of our German cousins ('how vas your bowel movement dis morgen?) Diet issues are just an Anglo-German ethnic prejudice. Anthropological data suggests that diet can be extremely varied without having any influence on lifespan.
Then what accounts for the long Japanese lifespan?
I have a simple hypothesis. The Japanese live so long because they are uniquely clean.
I know that the North Koreans consider themselves the cleanest race but I've never met a North Korean nor visited North Korea. Therefore I cannot compare them to the cleanliness of the Japanese.
I have been to most of the rest of the world and can assure you that nobody is nearly as clean as the Japanese. Some of the similarly clean people are Swiss, Turks and Finns.
But none of these people seem to me to have the level of cleanliness of the Japanese whom I know very well.
What is unsurprising about the cleanliness hypothesis is that it is in fact the history of longevity in the previous 150 years. As global populations improved their sewage and their cleanliness their life spans were extended. Explicitly creating our population explosion.
Cleanliness and sanitation were in fact what the rest of the world learned that allowed us to gain the kind of lifespan that comes close to approaching that of the Japanese.
Cleanliness may still have a role to play in increasing our lifespan.
If I look carefully at San Francisco, look carefully at the homelessness that is pervasive and look carefully at the level of filth that Americans tolerate, I can see that an increase in cleanliness would directly effect our own lifespan.
To put it in an other perspective: it is our dirty country that is keeping Social Security from getting more out of hand.
Posted with Blogsy