How much of your living is dedicated to try and avoid dying? Every second
magazine (especially women’s mags) has some advert for something that will
extend the readers’ lives, be that taking megavitamins or doing colonic
washouts.
I have dealt with the megavitamin myth before, so I won’t
cover that again today, but colonic washouts have been spared my pen dipped in
hemlock - until now. Just how, pray tell me, does sticking 300 mm of garden hose
up your fundamental orifice assist you to become more healthy? Let me assure you
that the colon was designed to cope with human poo. It was not designed to cope
with garden hose loaded with mystical ingredients that will make you live
longer. Put the garden hose away. It will not work. However, I should point out
that a medical colleague does believe and attributes his recovery from cancer on
his coffee enemas.
However, we still all want to be immortal, so if your
ambition is to live to be 100, the Okinawa Express is now leaving from platform
number three. According to an article I have read, the Japanese Health Ministry
claims that Okinawans have an average life expectancy of 81.2 years - 86 for
women and 75 for men (note for the marriageable - choose an Okinawan woman 11
years older than you are and go for a double cremation).
The other amazing fact was that Okinawan centenarians come in
at about 34 per 100,000 of the population, almost three and a half times more
than the figures from America.
So what are the Okinawans doing right? Is it the center of
colonic washouts? Or what is it that we are doing wrong? When you look at this
conundrum, it is interesting to note that if you take the Okinawans out of Japan
and relocate them in another culture, they end up with the same statistics as
the culture in which they are now living. The same has been shown in comparative
statistical examinations of all races, for all diseases. East Africans do not
get tooth decay, but when working for British Rail (“Mind the gap!”) and living
in the UK, end up with a set of typical British rotting teeth - or a fine set of
NHS dentures (mind the gap, again)!
So the true story is probably not lucky genes, but revolves
around diet and lifestyle. Okinawans are doing better because their lifestyle
suits them better, and their diet isn’t poisoning them or blocking their
arteries.
The lifestyle on Okinawa is apparently very slow and the
stress experienced by the local populace is not high. Now if this were the be
all and end all, my car washer will live to be 134 years old, but Thais, despite
a nice slow pace don’t do all that well in the longevity stakes either. So
there’s more.
The researchers cite diet, and the Okinawans are apparently
strong on fruits, vegetables, fish and ‘moderation’. (Once again, the middle way
looks like being the best, as a simple Buddhist observation.) Looking at one of
their recipes, it ends up being a tofu mish-mash with 59 calories per serving.
It is certainly not the high cholesterol stew that we as farangs tend to eat.
The other factors associated with longevity - or the lack of
it - cigarettes and booze, were not mentioned in the article - because I think
it would be there that you would find another clue. Despite Uncle Ernie who
lived to be 103 and smoked 60 cigarettes a day and drank a bottle of bourbon
before lunch and died when shot by a jealous husband, we do know that smoking
doesn’t help you live longer (when I typed that last phrase, I had inadvertently
put “love” longer - but that’s true too). Like wise, we know that with alcohol,
the middle way is also best.
So, rather than take the train to Okinawa, look at your diet,
look at your stresses in life, stop smoking, drink in moderation and you too may
make a 100. Of course, if you die of boredom aged 103, it wasn’t really worth
it, was it! Has anyone seen my garden hose?
