Here’ s hoping the stuff in the bag is not real blood…
Via Popgadget
People in China and other countries around the world are worried what will become of their own health and the health of their loved ones with revelations of tainted food produced in China hit the news with each passing week.
Meanwhile. . .
While China grapples with its latest tainted food crisis, the political elite are served the choicest, safest delicacies. They get hormone-free beef from the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, organic tea from the foothills of Tibet and rice watered by melted mountain snow.
And it’s all supplied by a special government outfit that provides all-organic goods from farms working under the strictest guidelines.
I wonder whether it will be revelations such as these that will lead to revolution in China.
The Japanese government is banking on the overwhelming power exerted by nicotine over spineless smokers in its search for new tax revenues.
A report by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare says that the government can expect to earn an additional 9 trillion yen in tax revenue over the next 10 years by raising the price of cigarettes to 1,000 yen a pack.
“Many people won’t be able to give up, even if they want to, so raising the price will lead to an increase in tax income,” said a representative of the ministry’s research team.
The ministry carried out a survey of over 20,000 smokers on the Internet, with results showing that if prices were increased from 300 to 1,000 yen a pack, 96 percent would try and give up smoking. However, a previous survey by the Central Social Insurance and Medical Council revealed that even with the best medical treatment, the success rate of giving up smoking for a year is only 33 percent. So even accounting for those who can cut down, and demand dropping to 36 percent of the previous year, the research team still predicts a net tax revenue increase of 560 billion yen in the first year. In the next year, when many ex-smokers take up the habit again, demand would bounce back by 40-49 percent, with an extra 1.27 trillion yen a year going into government coffers.
The currently-planned price increase to 500 yen is predicted to make an extra 4 trillion yen in tax over the next 10 years.
Don’t tell anyone, but I’m on a diet. You could call it the “iPhone diet” because I’m using one of the many applications (iTunes link) for my iPhone to track daily calorie intake.
My plan is to eat whatever I want while accurately recording everything, which will help me identify the stuff I’ve been eating that’s the most harmful. To help me out, my wife bought some bad-tasting medicine, saying, “Now, this is kampo, so it will definitely work.”
A word that literally means “Chinese way,” kampo refers to the traditional herbal medicine of China, and it occupies an almost mythical place in the minds of the Japanese, in effect being a complete class of medical science that’s separate from Western medicine.
Many products, from energy drinks to various “enhancers” to Yomeshu (a kind of medicinal sake loaded with Chinese herbs) advertise themselves as making use of the magical power of kampo to relieve symptoms. Many kampo medicines have the full backing of the medical community here, and health insurance even covers them.
In the U.S., however, traditional Chinese medicines are completely ignored by almost every major company.
It’d be interesting if there were some really effective drugs sitting right under our noses that have been in use in China for thousands of years.
One of the most baffling things to me about Japanese society is the work culture. I can’t understand how “salary men” prioritize their jobs over their families. Of course, if everyone else is doing it, no one can step out of line or risk getting fired but if the expectation of working until 8 or 9 or 10 pm everyday were the standard in France, for example, riots and strikes would have occurred ages ago.
In any case, the Washington Post ran a story about Japanese work culture last week (I’m behind), specifically about karoshi or working yourself to death.
Death from too much work is so commonplace in Japan that there is a word for it — karoshi. There is a national karoshi hotline, a karoshi self-help book and a law that funnels money to the widow and children of a salaryman (it’s almost always a man) who works himself into an early karoshi for the good of his company.
A local Japanese government agency ruled June 30 for the widow and children of a 45-year-old Toyota chief engineer who died in 2006. While organizing the worldwide manufacture of a hybrid version of the Camry sedan, the man had worked nights and weekends and often traveled abroad — putting in up to 114 hours of overtime a month — in the six months before he died in his bed of heart failure. The cause of death was too much work, according to a ruling by the Labor Bureau of Aichi prefecture, where Toyota has its headquarters.
For decades, the Japanese government has been trying, and largely failing, to set limits on work and on overtime. The problem of karoshi became prevalent enough to warrant its own word in the boom years of the late 1970s, as the number of Japanese men working more than 60 hours a week soared.
Thirty years later, overtime rules remain so nebulous and so weakly enforced that the United Nations’ International Labor Organization has described Japan as a country with no legal limits on the practice.
The consequences show up not only in claims for death and disability from overwork but in suicides attributed to “fatigue from work.” Among 2,207 work-related suicides in 2007, the most common reason (672 suicides) was overwork, according to government figures released in June.
Meat is a killer and should be avoided, and you should get your protein by eating plenty of soy products like tofu, right?
Not necessarily so if research coming out of the U.K. is to be believed. According to a study led by Loughborough University and reported on in the journal Dementias and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders, eating high levels of some soy products, including tofu, may raise the risk of memory loss.
The study focused on 719 elderly Indonesians living in urban and rural regions of Java.
The researchers found high tofu consumption - at least once a day - was associated with worse memory, particularly among the over-68s.
According to the same study, however, consumption of tempe may actually improve memory.
The latest study also found that eating tempe, a fermented soy product made from the whole soy bean, was associated with better memory.
Professor Hogervorst said the beneficial effect of tempe might be related to the fact that it contains high levels of the vitamin folate, which is known to reduce dementia risk.
“It may be that that the interaction between high levels of both folate and phytoestrogens protects against cognitive impairment.”
Well, like many other households in Japan, we eat plenty of tofu and other soy products. Because of this, I think. . . ummm. . . . er. . . .ah. . . . ???
As a group, the Japanese are fortunate enough to enjoy extremely long lifespans, with the current average being 78.5 years for men and 85.5 years for women. There are many reasons for this longevity, including a healthier diet, an extremely safe society, and a tendency to build lifelong relationships that provide important support in later years. (My mother-in-law is still close friends with women she went to elementary school with six decades ago, something that’s unthinkable to me.)
Another reason Japanese live a long time is the health care system here, in which private institutions provide health services according to highly structured price schedules imposed by the National Health Insurance System.
Currently Japan is going through “Health Insurance Hell” as various changes that kicked in April 1st continue to cause mass confusion.
For starters, Japan used to offer free healthcare to everyone over the age of 75, but this has changed, and under the new system, some elderly users must pay a monthly premium. It’s not clear which groups this applies to, however, and it’s feared that the new system, which makes people pay more for health insurance the more often they use medical services, will keep sick people from going to the hospital.
In addition, the government saw fit to change the Health Insurance Card from a large booklet to a paper-thin card, which is easily lost or thrown away by elderly Japanese.
Coca-Cola Japan has announced a new vitamin-fortified Coke that reportedly provides you with 81 percent of your daily requirement of vitamin C without any calories.
Well, it looks like the science is in on you guys. Researchers in the U.S. have concluded that obsessive internet use is a public health problem, which is so serious it should be officially recognized as a clinical disorder
Sufferers spend unhealthy amounts of time playing online games, viewing pornography or emailing.
They suffer four symptoms: They forget to eat and sleep; they need more advanced technology or more hours online as they develop ‘resistance’ to the pleasure given by their current system; if they are deprived of their computer, they experience genuine withdrawal symptoms; And in common with other addictions, the victims also begin to have more arguments, to suffer fatigue, to get lower marks in tests and to feel isolated from society.
Early research into the subject found highly educated, socially awkward men were the most likely sufferers but more recent work suggests it is now more of a problem for middle-aged women who are spending hours at home on their computers.
According to psychiatrist Dr Jerald Block, “The relationship is with the computer. It becomes a significant other to them. They exhaust emotions that they could experience in the real world on the computer through any number of mechanisms: emailing, gaming, porn.” He added: “It’s much more acceptable for kids to talk about game use, whereas adults keep it a secret. Rather than having sex, or arguing with their wife or husband, or feeding their children, these adults are playing games.”
The dream of every tubby around the world. . . A pleasant tasting magical fruit that will allow you to eat your way to a slimmer waistline. That is what is being claimed for the Thai mangosteen.
“Mangosteens are sometimes called the Queen of Fruits,” Koichi Okabe, a dessert company president who deals with a variety of different Thai foods, tells Sunday Mainichi. “Mangosteen juice, made by crushing the fruit, skin and seeds, not only tastes great, it has wonderful health benefits. It was only developed last year in Thailand, but American buyers are swarming to get it.”
Mangosteens contain over 100 different beneficial substances; most notably xanthones, said to help fight the effects of allergies, cancer and lifestyle diseases, as improve blood pressure and the immune system, and restore youthfulness to the body’s cells.
This isn’t the first time that magical properties are being claimed for a plant growing in Thailand. Long-time readers of JAPUNDIT may remember that a number of years back we had a report on a plant called the Pueraria Mirifica, which is said to enhance female breasts if ingested regularly.
Norimitsu Onishi is reporting in the New York Times about a new program in Japan to slim down. It’s hard to believe on many levels. First, Japan has to have one of the healthiest and slimmest populations in the world. Second, it’s hard to believe that the government will get away with imposing these measures on companies and individuals with no backlash. Third, I don’t understand how the government has a standard measure for obesity based on waistline regardless of height. One other interesting thing is the introduction (or at least use) of the word “metabo” which they think will be more effective in their campaign.
Under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups. That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent of the entire population.
Those exceeding government limits — 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women, which are identical to thresholds established in 2005 for Japan by the International Diabetes Federation as an easy guideline for identifying health risks — and having a weight-related ailment will be given dieting guidance if after three months they do not lose weight. If necessary, those people will be steered toward further re-education after six more months.
To reach its goals of shrinking the overweight population by 10 percent over the next four years and 25 percent over the next seven years, the government will impose financial penalties on companies and local governments that fail to meet specific targets. The country’s Ministry of Health argues that the campaign will keep the spread of diseases like diabetes and strokes in check.
The word metabo has made it easier for health care providers to urge their patients to lose weight, said Dr. Yoshikuni Sakamoto, a physician in the employee health insurance union at Matsushita, which makes Panasonic products.
“Before we had to broach the issue with the word obesity, which definitely has a negative image,” Dr. Sakamoto said. “But metabo sounds much more inclusive.”
NEC, Japan’s largest maker of personal computers, said that if it failed to meet its targets, it could incur as much as $19 million in penalties. The company has decided to nip metabo in the bud by starting to measure the waistlines of all its employees over 30 years old and by sponsoring metabo education days for the employees’ families.
Former sumo champion Konishiki arrived back in Japan recently for the first time after undergoing gastric bypass surgery in February.
Since the operation Konishiki has shed 70 kilograms (144 pounds), from a high of 300 kilograms (660 pounds).
Though we would like to congratulate Konishiki on his weight loss and wish him the best in the future, we must admit that he still looks pretty hefty in the above “after” photo.
Sankei Sports via Tokyo Graph
The Los Angeles Times is reporting on a yakuza-related story which has recently come to light. Apparently in the early 2000s, four yakuza had liver transplants at UCLA Medical center in Los Angeles, California and then two donated $100,000 afterwards. Of course, paying for transplants of any kind can be illegal and is certainly controversial; especially when the money is tainted by crime.
The transplant recepient was identified by a law enforcement official as one of four Japanese men now barred from entering the United States because of their suspected gang affiliations, criminal records, or both. All four received new livers at UCLA between 2000 and 2004.
The surgeries took place at a time of persistent shortages of donor livers. In the year of Goto’s transplant, 186 patients on the list for livers died while waiting for the operation in the greater Los Angeles region.
The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has issued a report saying that smokers who drink two or more 180 milliliter servings of sake per day are 1.7 times more likely to develop lung cancer than smokers who drink only occasionally.
The survey found that smokers in the groups who drank two to three 180 milliliter servings or at least three 180 milliliter servings per day were 1.7 times more likely to develop lung cancer than smokers who drank less. The results showed that the more smokers drank, the high the cancer rate was.
The research team suspects that the alcohol-degrading enzymes increased the activity of carcinogens contained in cigarette smoke. The rate of developing cancer was about 1.6 times higher in the group of people who hardly ever drank compared with the group who drank occasionally, but it was thought that the non-drinkers included people who had originally had a high risk of developing lung cancer and had to give up drinking.”
A few days ago I remarked that Japan’s dietary problems are more due to high-glycemic index foods rather than large amounts of animal protein. Now a report by Japan’s Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry seems to bear this out.
The health ministry said Wednesday that about 18.7 million people in Japan were diabetic or close to being diabetic as of 2006, up 2.5 million, or 15.4 percent, from the previous estimate in 2002.
One major factor behind the rise was “the rapid graying of society,” and another was “lack of physical exercise and increasing consumption of high-calorie foods,” a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry ministry official said.
in an apparent chemistry experiment gone awesome, a 14 year old girl managed to not only to give herself considerable trouble breathing, but forced an evacuation of her apartment complex. according to police this is only an isolated incident in a series of similar experimentation through out the nation. driven to recreating this inspiring chemical reaction by educational websites around the world, many japanese both young and old are racing to combine household cleaning products in order to artificially create the chemical responsible for odiferous flattus.
when reached for comment about how and why so many people around japan would be performing their own trails with household cleaning chemicals when the results, in addition to being well known, are also so stinky; the head of a tokyo based group specializing in this field gave this observation…
“It’s easy, and everyone can do it,”
finally a family friendly way to introduce the children to the wonders of science through empirical observation of molecule creation. think of how little taro’s eyes will light up when you tell him you’re going to show him how to create a smell like a bad fart in an enclosed space. that rebellious and angsty girl airi will finally find something she could do when she is alone. your spouse could learn a good prank to pull next time you forget your anniversary. why not just surprise everybody and do it yourself? it just takes one’s breath away when considering all the people that could benefit from testing this home school biochemical reaction.
just remember for the sake of your neighbors, please put up a notice like the one listed in the article. it is always good to let the people living around you know that might not want to partake in your pursuit of knowledge that they may need to keep a wide berth. sort of like a mythbuster’s “science content” warning.
The NPR program, All Things Considered recently had a six-minute segment (audio) on a comparison of the Japanese and U.S. health care systems. The program indicates that the Japanese pay less, get more, and cover everyone (45 million Americans - 15% - are uninsured in the U.S.) but that it is tightly controlled by the government even though the doctors and hospitals are private and that profits are low or non-existant. In every system - health care and otherwise - there are winners and losers. Based on the story, in the U.S., doctors, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and well-insured patients are the winners. In Japan it appears that the patients are the winners. Oh and Japan has the healthiest people and longest life-span. They must be doing something right.
The first cases of cholera since 2002 have been discovered in Japan in Saitama. All of the people who came down with the disease at at the same restaurant.
Ten men and women complained that they suffered diarrhea and nausea after eating sashimi and other food at Shozaburo, a Japanese-style restaurant in Kisai, Saitama Prefecture.
Eight of them received treatment and three were hospitalized. None are in a serious condition.
Reuters is reporting that Japanese companies are coming out with supplements that are targeted specifically to providing a jolt to the tired eyes and sluggish brains of the nation’s game players. A new potion called “Game Suppli” has been developed specifically for those who play games.
Maker Kyowa-Yakuhin produces two different supplements for the “Game Suppli” range: blueberry tablets that are meant to be good for the eyes, and transparent capsules containing Docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, a fatty acid that supposedly enhances concentration.
Japan’s convenience stores are stacked with drinks and capsules claiming various health and beauty benefits, sometimes without any scientific evidence.
But before you start chuckling too hard, check out this story from the AFP that claims one-fifth of scientists in the U.S. say they use performance-enhacing prescription drugs when that extra little something is called for.
Twenty percent of scientists admit to using performance-enhancing prescription drugs for non-medical reasons, according to a survey released Wednesday by Nature, Britain’s top science journal.
The overwhelming majority of these med-taking brainiacs said they indulged in order to “improve concentration,” and 60 percent said they did so on a daily or weekly basis.
The 1,427 respondents — most of them in the United States — completed an informal, online survey posted on the “Nature Network” Web forum, a discussion site for scientists operated by the Nature Publishing Group.
More than a third said that they would feel pressure to give their children such drugs if they knew other kids at school were also taking them.
Thanks to D for the inspiration.
