Folks in so called socialized medicine countries living longer!

[RedCloud]

[JonQ]

1. Japan and iceland are doing something right

let's copy them.

Of course medical care isn't the only factor at play here; diet and lifestyle would still hold us back from other countries in terms of life expectancy even controlling for healthcare.

[imdjh]

5. Japan supposedly has a huge diet problem, so ay discrepancy would be worse, wouldn't it?

Not too long ago it was in a major magazine that the amount of salt in the Japanese diet was deadly, that ambulances were on hand at baseball games because they could count on at least one stroke in the stands. The same article and others said that alcoholism is a huge problem in Japan, and one would expect it to be in Iceland as well.

[Hannah Bell]

9. japan, last time i checked, had a higher stroke rate than the us, but lower heart attack rate.

and a lower heart disease rate overall. people aren't dropping in the streets from stroke, & rates have been declining since the 60s.

the "salt" isn't salt per se, it's pickled vegetables, shoyu, salt fish, & miso.

alcoholism wasn't a noticeably big problem, in the sense of drunks on the streets as in the us. lots of drinking, but mostly in association with college, holiday, & business sociability. japanese are usually friendly drunks, not mean ones, unlike in the us, & highly functional drunks, unlike in the us.

the poor economic situation may be changing the picture, but that would be the economy, not the drink per se.

don't trust us media accounts as gospel. they blow things out of proportion, sometimes with an agenda, & miss the interesting, important stuff.

i don't get why you'd think if japan has a high stroke rate, iceland does too.

the japanese live longer, & with less morbidity, than americans. it's fact. they don't have "a huge diet problem," i don't even get what you mean by that.

[imdjh]

10. I was thinking that Iceland would have a high alcoholism rate, not stroke.

THe articles noted as a difficulty in diagnosis and treatment that alcoholism in Japan was somewhat more hidden.

Back to Japan: Very high consumption of salt is a huge diet problem regardless of who is doing it or how they are doing it.

[Hannah Bell]

16. the japanese are the longest-lived nation in the world. their "problem" pales in comparison

with those of many other places.

they smoke way more than americans, too, but have less smoking-related disease.

diet & personal habits have less to do with health than social conditions.

[Art_from_Ark]

25. Smoking in Japan is going down big time

There is a big movement to prohibit or restrict smoking in public places (for example, no smoking is allowed in JR train stations in Tokyo), there is no more smoking in trains or buses, no more cigarette advertising on TV. I heard that 30 years ago, more than 50% of the adult population were smokers, but now that figure has gone down below 40% and is probably closer to 30%.

[Hannah Bell]

27. i was there in the 80s. the non-smoking kick hadn't hit. most company men i knew smoked.

but japanese still lived longer & had a lower rate of smoking-related diseases than the US then.

it was labeled the "japanese paradox," akin to the "french paradox," the "greek paradox," the "finnish paradox," etc. - which the US health establishment uses to describes exceptions to its orthodoxy.

[Art_from_Ark]

29. Oh, yeah, in the '80s Japan was still a smoker's paradise

I remember getting in a train in Kyoto in the early '80s headed for Ama-no-hashidate and the guy sitting across from me was telling me how that was the slowest train in Japan, as he blew big puffs of cigarette smoke in my face. And every car in that train was a smoking car (I decided not to go to Ama-no-hashidatte). But that began to change in the mid '80s or so, when no-smoking cars were introduced (usually limited to 2 or 3 cars in a train of 15 cars). Now, as far as I know, all JR trains (and buses) are non-smoking.

I also remember seeing American cigarette commercials on Japanese TV that I remembered from the pre-ban days in the US (featuring the Lark Man, the Marlboro Man, etc), but nowadays you won't see anything like that on Japanese TV.

[Hannah Bell]

31. "all JR trains" - big changes. how long have you lived there? you're also

married to a japanese woman if i remember right? you're the metals guy? i remember talking to you during the commodities speculation wave. what's new in that arena?

[Hannah Bell]

18. why would you assume icelanders are particularly alcoholic?

japanese drink rather more than americans - comparable to the us in the 50s-60s, when the 3-martini lunch & the cocktail party were de riguer.

"hidden" alcoholism = what?

it's a label to problematize people who drink but are functional.

[imdjh]

20. I disagree. Hidden alcoholism is very real.

Go to some AA meetings and soon enough you will hear stories about people who were very good at being functional alcoholics. Never missed a day of work and that sort of thing. People who get drunk and "handle it" are just as drunk as those who swing from chandeliers.

[Hannah Bell]

22. "being drunk" in & of itself, isn't a problem, nor a disease.

we'll agree to disagree. we're coming from very different places. i've been to yours, you've never been to mine, & there's no basis for understanding.




"Sociocultural variants are at least as important as physiological and psychological variants when we are trying to understand the interrelations of alcohol and human behavior. Ways of drinking and of thinking about drinking are learned by individuals within the context in which they learn ways of doing other things and of thinking about them--that is, whatever else drinking may be, it is an aspect of culture about which patterns of belief and behavior are modeled by a combination of example, exhortation, rewards, punishments, and the many other means, both formal and informal, that societies use for communicating norms, attitudes, and values."

Heath, D.B., "Sociocultural Variants in Alcoholism," pp. 426-440 in Pattison, E.M., and Kaufman, E., eds., Encyclopedic Handbook of Alcoholism, Gardner Press, New York, 1982, p. 438.



"Individual drinkers tend to model and modify each others' drinking and, hence,...there is a strong interdependence between the drinking habits of individuals who interact.... Potentially, each individual is linked, directly or indirectly, to all members of his or her culture...."

Skøg, O., "Implications of the Distribution Theory for Drinking and Alcoholism," pp. 576-597 in Pittman, D.J., and White, H.R., eds., Society, Culture, and Drinking Patterns Reexamined, Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, New Brunswick, NJ, 1991, p. 577



"Over the course of socialization, people learn about drunkenness what their society `knows' about drunkenness; and, accepting and acting upon the understandings thus imparted to them, they become the living confirmation of their society's teachings."

MacAndrew, C., and Edgerton, R.B., Drunken Comportment: A Social Explanation, Aldine, Chicago, 1969, p. 88.



"alcoholism" isn't just about how much people drink.

[imdjh]

23. I disagee.

Though I suppose if you could manage to be drunk and damaged someplace where your behavior didn't affect anyone else, then I could agree. But see, even if I could go buy a cave in Costa Rica and have liquor left at the mouth of the cave for me, I would be depriving my family of my care and support, so that wouldn't apply to me.

I don't buy the "it's all relative" crap. A drunk is a drunk, regardless of how many drunks he hangs out with.

[Hannah Bell]

24. I already said, we'll agree to disagree. I'm by no means saying "it's all relative."

i'm saying something akin to "japanese ramen is nothing like top ramen". which is difficult to "get" until you eat real japanese ramen in its context, then it's simple.

[JonQ]

12. The japanese diet is often held up as an ideal diet

along with the mediterranean (although for radically different reasons).

Lots of fish, low fat, plenty of veggies, the japanese diet is quite healthy, which is why they have the highest per capita rate of people living over 100.

Higher stress levels are probably hurting them some, but not as much as a high fat diet like we have.

[imdjh]

14. I find all that to be suspicious. Like "French people are thin despite a high fat diet."

French people, it seems, are not thin. Parisians tend to be thin for the same reason white people in Manhattan tend to look a certain way.

There is plenty of oil and fat in the Japanese diet. Read the back of the Ramen noodles package sometime, and then add in the visible fats in their food. And is there something special about their fish that it's not toxic, Americans have been warned not to eat fish more than a couple of times a month, right?

I suspect that if the Japanese are truly living longer, it has to do with a combination of factors from genetics to population density and proximity to first rate medical services. We have a huge number of people in the US who simply live too far from the hospital and the EMT station. My aunt and uncle live less than 150 miles from Washington DC, and only ten miles from a major medical center, but an ambulance cannot be to their house in less than ten minutes. A helicopter might do it quicker if it were already in the air, but they don't usually do helicopters for heart attacks or strokes.

[Hannah Bell]

17. "There is plenty of oil and fat in the Japanese diet. Read the back of the Ramen noodles package"

you're uninformed. packaged ramen isn't a big part, nor a typical part, of the japanese diet. but it's the kind of thing an american would assume.

& the japanese have no special genetic predisposition to longevity. It's a post-war phenomenon, as is their low crime rate.

[imdjh]

19. Perhaps I am uninformed, but I haven't seen anything to counter my perception.

I worked with lots of Japanese-Americans in California. While Anglo-Americans were pissing away money on lunch, the JA were eating packaged ramen noodles. Someone who has lived in Tokyo told me, when I was raving about the Scion XB, that the little station wagons are used to deliver giant vats of hot noodles to Japanese workplaces so they don't have to maintain a cafeteria. It's hard to imagine that the ramen would be all that different in Japan than it is here.

As for the possibility that the Japanese have a predisposition to longevity, and post war phenomenon one might reasonably wonder if the War didn't change the character of the Japanese race considerably in ways not accounted for. I was reading the other day that Scotland sent more people to WWII (perhaps WWI I cant' find the site now) per capita than any other country, and in doing so the average height of Scottish males was reduced by nine inches- because so many of the tall ones went to war and died before reproducing.

[Hannah Bell]

21. i lived there 3 years, married to a japanese (not japanese-american) for 10+,

worked for several corporations & a prefectural government, & worked with japanese 10+ yrs in the us.

traditional ramen is quite different from pre-packaged ramen, though you find it difficult to imagine.

to start with, traditional ramen noodles aren't made with fat, let alone hydrogenated fat. second, soup base = some combination of dried fish/miso/seaweed, not msg & hydrogenated vegetable protein.

the "vats of ramen" & the ramen kiosks at trains & subways don't serve "top ramen". The serve something like these: the recipe is similar to spaghetti noodles.



it looks something like this:



except with a wide regional & personal variety of soup bases & toppings.

the height of scots didn't decline because tall men went to war, either. nor did japanese genetics change due to the war. what changed was the economic & political situation.

you may find it hard to imagine, but socio-economic conditions are the most powerful predictors of health & longevity.

a typical ramen lunch in japan has less fat, fewer calories, & more vegetables than a typical us fast food burger lunch.

this is what ramen kiosks in japan look like:


http://hima-town.aminus3.com/image/2008-05-13.html

http://travel.webshots.com/photo/1080976626048034682POfBzH



noodles are boiled up fresh in big pots, scooped out with wire paddles, simmering broth poured over, toppings added, all in front of the customer.



"Like a lot of American kids my age, I grew up with an imposter. Fool that I was, I loved it with an unreserved passion....

Despite a winning name, Top Ramen really wasn't the star player in my affections. For my personal ontology, noodle bricks weren't even in the same genre as the ambrosial Nissin Cup o' Noodles...

I've come to discover that real ramen doesn't involve MSG packets. It isn't even really about the noodles. Real ramen is a sensual experience closer to poetry.

Between the pork and the seaweed, the mushrooms and the egg, the scallions and the broth, the noodle and the steam, real ramen is about comparison. It begins just breathing in the aroma of the bowl. Then the exploration: One bite is briny sea, the next is rich, savory earth. This one is bracing and vegetal. That one, creamy and smooth. This one is chewy, that one, crisp. Real ramen is revelation."

http://www.missginsu.com/2007/11/tale-of-three-ramen.html



What is Real Ramen?
Friday July 8, 2005

"Ramen" eaten in Japan are different from instant ramen noodles. Learn about Japanese ramen noodle and about the soup.

http://japanesefood.about.com/b/2005/07/08/what-is-real-ramen.htm


Gaijin and Real Ramen

One thing foreigners visiting Japan should be sure and try is "real" ramen. Thanks to its cheapness, virtually everyone in the world is familiar with instant ramen noodles like Cup Noodle, and I sure ate my share during my days as a poor college student. The difference between instant noodles and the real stuff found in Japanese ramen restaurants, though, is like night and day.

http://www.peterpayne.net/2008/10/gaijin-and-real-ramen.html.



much more of the "traditional" survives in japan than the us.

[Art_from_Ark]

26. I got a laugh out of that too

Here in Japan, I sometimes take a bowl of instant ramen to work (but not the American kind-- it actually has a real miso soup base and real vegetables), and my co-workers sometimes laugh at me for that (You're eating that junk?). Almost all of them either go to a restaurant for lunch, or bring their own "bento" lunch usually consisting of rice, fish and vegetables.

[Hannah Bell]

28. it's so off-the-mark if you've been there. but i understand why the poster was so insistent.

my own personal cultural blinders story is going to stay with a friend in paris, my first trip out of the states, & insisting vehemently we get a "schedule" for the subway so we wouldn't have to sit waiting too long.

i simply *wouldn't* believe they ran practically every few minutes, with no waiting for connections - because i "knew" seattle's bus system was the last word in urban transport - & you needed to consult the schedules there or you could wind up waiting a hour in the rain.

I literally couldn't *hear* my friend, who'd lived there for years.

light-bulb clicking on when i experienced subways.

[indepat]

2. A freakin' small price to pay to continue the obscene total compensation of insurance company

CEO: that's what those opposed to universal single payer are irrefutably telling us. :P

[tocqueville]

3. despite death panels... incredible... nt

[kenny blankenship]

7. The Death Panels select virtuous hardworking self-reliant individuals for early termination

and misallocate all the fruits of their virtuous labor to unnaturally prolong the lives of masses of miscreant dupes who have no entrepreneurial spirit or ingenuity but who're favored with long life only because they're gullible enough to believe in the Communist State Religion and venerate Karl Marx as Santa Claus, Jesus, and Bea Arthur rolled into one.

If it wasn't for the secret underground facilities where acres of sore-covered, semi-comatose octagenarian skeletons are kept alive on breathing machines, feeding tubes, and tape loops of Eisenstein movies and Prokofiev arrangements, --all of it smuggled from capitalist countries because they can't produce it domestically--the average life expectancy in these "social democracies" would be only 57.5 years. That's their Worker's Paradise! 57 years of aimless trudging in the salt mines followed by 23 + years attached to an artificial respirator just so the Commintern can look good on some bogus United Nations health care statistic. And as grim and chintzy as it is, they wouldn't even be able to pay for it without continually confiscating the wealth of their suppressed entrepreneurial classes.

And Democrats tell you these people have it good and have something to teach us!

[tocqueville]

35. and they abort all babies too...

so the only rational explanation is that to maintain their population level, those commie states are into secret mass cloning...

[Wilms]

4. Proving, again, that republics are homicidal maniacs bent on getting us all killed before our time.

[troubledamerican]

8. That's the point. That's the idea. Death Squads, by one means or another.

[kenny blankenship]

6. That's just so the state can enslave them for longer. Because they're teh Evil.

[Billy Burnett]

11. Cuba isn't on that chart.

Funny that an impoverished small island has life expectancy stats and infant mortality stats to rival the best on the posted chart.

Cuba infant mortality (deaths/1,000 live births) = 5.1

Life expectancy = 77.45

[Overseas]

13. Of course they are. That's why the private insurers hired right wing PR firms to

gin up dangerous fear and hatred in vulnerable populations to storm town halls with ridiculous posters and death panel talk.

Private insurers got their money's worth. They managed, through those amoral right wing PR firms who just "supported genuine grass roots groups" (just coincidentally silent during the blatant war profiteering and torture practiced by the Bush Gang), to divert our national dialogue away from the very serious problems in our privatized health insurance system and effective solutions and on to kookville-- we spent August talking down death panels and toting guns to town hall meetings.

Instead of reviewing the sad truth on what has happened to our fellow citizens since the private insurance companies last defeated national health insurance over 15 years ago-- millions more uninsured, millions more bankrupt from medical bills, premium costs ever-escalating-- their few million dollars in support of those "genuine grass roots" groups got us to talk about anything but the miserable failure they have been in proving that the "private sector can do better."

We could have been looking at the statistics on other modern countries that have national health programs, and how much better their results have been-- better or equal outcomes while they COVER EVERYONE for far less than we have paid to cover so few.

Professional bullying to protect private profits has been very successful this summer.

[tigereye]

15. that's a fascinating chart, thanks! Imagine folks not having to worry so much

about health care - what a terrible thing that would be.... :eyes:




All that screaming about socialism is so ridiculous. Most of those people don't even know what socialism is...

[burrowowl]

30. Recommend!

Nice readable graphics!

[Mariana]

32. That has nothing whatsoever to do with socialized medicine.

That's what my rabidly right-wing dad (who's on Medicare) tells me.

It's all because of lifestyle. You see, they get more exercise than Americans, because the people in those countries are rendered so poor from the high taxation that they mostly can't afford cars, so they have to walk and bike and take public transportation everywhere. Also, they can't afford to eat out very often and have to cook everything from scratch, so they con't eat as much. If they didn't have socialized medicine, they'd live much longer than they do now.

Furthermore, even though they live longer, they suffer a lot more than Americans do. All that time spent on waiting lists - and that's just the lucky ones who actually get treated. The old and disabled and chronically ill are written off as too expensive to bother with, so they just linger in misery until they finally die.

Now, who can argue with that? :eyes:

[and-justice-for-all]

33. "If they didn't have socialized medicine"?

Oh the madness.

[old mark]

34. ....so Dad is saying they don't really live longer, it just

SEEMS longer.....

Hell, the 8 years of W's regime seemed to me to take forever.....

mark