Does diet or climate keep us alive longer ?

lol, looking at his eyesight, I think his brain is gone. That's the organ that burns most of calories. Also it doesn't look that he moved at all for 15 days, and didn't had a thought, that might have saved him.
What kind of life is this? Obviously not for me. :)
Why he didn't eat only for 15 days, and not for half a year? Did he feel hungry all of the sadden? Next time he should be sitting in blazing sun for 15 days, and not in possibly air-conditioned interior.

His bold claim that he didn't eaten or drunk for 70 years is his PR stunt (think money), otherwise he's a liar. If he was a Gandhi, he wouldn't have eaten for 15 days or 70 years and nobody would knew about this. In case of this man all world knows that, hmmm. Regardless, it's against laws of physics.

BTW, welcome to Eupedia, I like your posts, really well written. (well, except this one, lol)
 
Japan says over 230,000 listed centenarians can't be found

Japan says over 230,000 listed centenarians can't be found

(AFP) ? 7 hours ago

TOKYO ? More than 230,000 people listed as alive and at least 100 years old in Japan cannot be found, including 884 who would be 150 or older, officials said Friday.

Japan, famed for its longevity, launched a nationwide survey after a recent string of grisly discoveries -- including a mummified man in his bed and an old woman's remains in a backpack -- sparked alarm over the fate of many elderly.

The cases also triggered soul-searching over elderly people living in isolation, and public outrage at relatives of those missing who have kept their deaths secret in order to keep receiving their pension payments.

The Justice Ministry said that a search of family registries, which are updated based on residents' notifications, found that 234,354 people recorded as at least 100 years old could not be located at their listed address.

Many of those whose whereabouts were unknown may have died as long ago as World War II or in the post-war turmoil, or may have emigrated without their status being reported to local authorities, the ministry said.

The list included 77,118 people who would be 120 years or older today, and 884 who would be at least 150 years old, the ministry said.

The government has instructed regional legal offices to delete the names of people aged 120 or older if their whereabouts cannot be confirmed.

The ministry said the impact on Japan's life expectancy figures would likely be minimal since these are calculated from separate data gathered in home visits by field workers during national census campaigns.

Japan's health ministry reported in July that the average life expectancy was a world-record 86.44 years for women and 79.59 years for men.

Authorities rang the alarm bell over missing elderly when a birthday call by Tokyo officials to a man believed to be 111 years old instead led to a police search that found his three-decade-old mummified skeleton in his bed.

In another case the remains of a Tokyo woman believed to be 104 were found stuffed into her son's backpack, where they had been for more than a decade.

And earlier this month a 58-year-old woman living near Osaka admitted to keeping her father's corpse hidden at home for the past five years.
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Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jIZ81qj4TAHUCnTOZA8__G5G_fDw
 
Around 1960 Greeks and especially Cretans had the highest (or at least one of the highest) life expectancy in the world. Scientists concluded that Cretan Mediterranean diet was the reason for their longevity so this type of diet became really popular around the world and it still is today.

If you take a look at recent life expectancy charts you will see that Greeks are not longer at the top. The climate in Greece hasn't really changed a lot since 1960, but what has changed is the nutrition of Greeks. We have adopted a more western type of diet since our life style has changed. We consume a lot of fast food since there is not enough time to cook nowadays and most of the ingredients are not fresh as they used to be. We used to eat meat once per week or only on holidays but now many Greeks eat meat 3-5 times per week! Red wine used to be present in every meal but now most Greeks drink soft drinks...

I think that diet is a big factor for longevity and my country's life expectancy charts through the years can prove it
 
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Here is an interesting thing on longevity from Discover magazine, Live Long and Prospere by Gary Taubes.
"...Still, when Barzilai and his colleagues questioned the near centenarians as part of their aging studies, the genetic determinant of longevity took the researchers by surprise. “When we started recruiting 100-year-olds”, Barzilai says, “we noticed smoothing interesting. They have a family history of longevity. When we asked them, among other things, ‘Why do you think you lived to be so old?’ they usually say, ‘What do you mean? All my brothers and sisters are over 100’. Or ‘My mother was 102, my grandfather was 108’.
“Then we say, ‘OK, tell us really the truth. You ate yogurt your whole life. You were a vegetarian’. But the interesting thing is, we have only 2 percent vegetarians. We have none who exercised regularly, and 30 percent were overweight or obese back in the 1950s, when not the many people were overweight or obese. Almost 30 percent have smoked two packs of cigarettes for more than 50 years. We have one woman, alive now-she’s 107-who celebrated 95 years of two-pack-a-day cigarette smoking. She had four siblings in my study. All of them were over 100. One younger sister died at 102, the poor thing.”
This is not to say that smoking cigarettes won’t prematurely kill the rest of us, or that exercising regularly won’t make us live longer. “What I tell people”. Says Steven Austad, an expert on the biology of aging at the University of Texas Health Science Center, “is that if you want to live to be healthy 80-year-old, you have to eat right and exercise, et cetera. If you want to live to be a healthy 100-year-old, you have to have the right parents.”..."
 
The warmer climatic regions have much comfortable lifestyle for people than colder regions & hence it increases their life expectancy which can be proved very nicely using the above post charts.
 
I tend to agree with Maciamo's theory:

People with good living standards, education and good access to health care seem to have the same life expectancy, regardless where they live in Europe. With people of lower income and education, there seems to be a difference in life style according to the region.
The nutrition of people with low leaving standards in Southern Europe seems to be healthier than the one of people with low living standards in Northern Europe. Heavy meals, especially fast food and industrial products with a lot of chemistry, saturated fats and few roughage is very common among the poorer citizens in the North. Lower temperatures and lack of sun might also play some role, although I think that the effect isn't that important anymore nowadays, compared to like 100 years ago. While unemployed Southeners hang out a lot in the outside with fresh air, unemployed Northeners are mostly in the inside.
 
Maciamo said:
Interestingly, the Pays de Loire, which is in the northern half of France, has a high male and female life expectancy. Alsace also does better than other northern regions. Both of them are wine producing regions. But do the French drink more wine because they live closer to the vineyards ? I don't have the regional data for wine consumption, but I doubt it. After all, Switzerland does not produce (much) wine and has the world's third highest consumption. The Belgians and the Danes also drink more wine than, say the Greeks or Australians, who do produce their wine (and Australian wines are among the very best). If it's part of the culture people will drink.
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Brittany is the region with highest Wine consumption but lowest life expectancy (according to your data). This might also be the result of a strong butter (crepe) alimentation and a polluted water (because of Agriculture)
 
Mzungu mchagga said:
I tend to agree with Maciamo's theory:

People with good living standards, education and good access to health care seem to have the same life expectancy, regardless where they live in Europe. With people of lower income and education, there seems to be a difference in life style according to the region.
The nutrition of people with low leaving standards in Southern Europe seems to be healthier than the one of people with low living standards in Northern Europe. Heavy meals, especially fast food and industrial products with a lot of chemistry, saturated fats and few roughage is very common among the poorer citizens in the North. Lower temperatures and lack of sun might also play some role, although I think that the effect isn't that important anymore nowadays, compared to like 100 years ago. While unemployed Southeners hang out a lot in the outside with fresh air, unemployed Northeners are mostly in the inside.
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Mzungu mchagga
I agree, it is certainly a major factor is nutrition.

Although this short article is not about the Europeans, but the longevity of the Japanese and especially the inhabitants of Okinawa, it is very impressive and can help in formulating opinions.

Why do the Japanese live the longest?

www.naturalelixir.com/longlife.html
 
Not sure if it's relevant or not but there is this idea out there that a low calorie diet will prolong life and enhance health.

But there is also the fact that people become generally smaller, shorter,etc.

Maybe that has something to do with Japanese longevity compared to say american.

BTW the whole saturated fat is unhealthy idea is complete BS, my brother eats trough a box of butter per week, and basically sometimes just eats butter with a spoon, pure saturated fat.

He is 33, thin and has perfect cholesterol.

also, think of the eskimos and the amount of fat they consume while being in perfect health.
 
Metabolism has also a lot to do with genes. Although mainstream tendencies do exist, there are always exceptions, as can be seen in your brother. My room-mate also eats a glass of Nutella (chocolate spread) within every two days, and she is really slim. Basically same with me. Some people can drink a lot of alcohol without big damage, others can't.

All these diet and nutrition advices never fully cover every person in the world. I guess in a few years genetic tests can be done so that every person can receive his personal diet recommendation.
 
Mzungu mchagga said:
Metabolism has also a lot to do with genes. Although mainstream tendencies do exist, there are always exceptions, as can be seen in your brother. My room-mate also eats a glass of Nutella (chocolate spread) within every two days, and she is really slim. Basically same with me. Some people can drink a lot of alcohol without big damage, others can't.

All these diet and nutrition advices never fully cover every person in the world. I guess in a few years genetic tests can be done so that every person can receive his personal diet recommendation.
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I don't believe that some people just have ultra fast metabolisms and can eat whatever they want, in reality they often have slower, as can be seen with the fact that skinny people most often are cold. i am not saying metabolism is static, i am just saying that there is not a big difference and what makes the difference is the amount of food one consume, so fat people would have faster.

The fact that some people can eat more calories while not being active and still not putting on weight, i think is because of problems with digestion, that the body simply does not takes all calories up and to use. just a theory.
 
Fast and slow metabolism means how fast we move food through guts. It is related to fatness of a person but not always. There are skinny people that eat a lot and there are fat people that don't really eat huge portions.
Everybody have fast metabolism when diet consists only with starches and sugars. With meat and vegetables there is a different story.
Some skinny people have a gene mutation that makes them unable to digest or build fat in their bodies.
Also important is the gut bacterial flora is helping and even enabling us to digest different kinds of foods. There is more bacteria in our guts than cells in our bodies. It also have an input how many calories a person will assimilate from food. The timing of feeling full reflex or how strong we feel hunger, plus food taste and smell enjoyment, are other pieces in this puzzle.
Size of a stomach is another factor in fast metabolism. Depending on food type, bacterial flora, gut movement, age of a person, genetics, we could digest from almost 0 to almost 100% calories.

Good dietitian expert would take all of it under consideration, even making few tests and xrays before creating a diet program.
This should be a part of personalized medicine.

I'm horrified of "experts" talking about caloric input same for everyone, and curing all with their one method, and they also know exactly that we all need 8 glasses of water a day, lol. They would do much better if they use relativistic caloric input figures than universal ones.
 
What was discovered recently is that north europeans can carry more body fat, higher body mass index than south europeans, without negative effects. This is consistent with evolutionary past, as north europeans had to consume more fat and get fatter for long winters.
 
In my opnion i think it a combination of aspects Scotland is pretty severe during the cold months months season so individuals don't spend much time out gates so in common individuals will not be interesting in as much physical practice. In addition to a very inadequate modern "fast food" diet and a harmful intake of liquor.


Rutherford Health Club
 
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