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Mind and Body
Written and researched by Bob Murray, PhD
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How to Live Longer
May 22, 2001
The Okinawans are the longest-lived people in the world. When they die, it is at the average age of 86 for women, and over 75 for men. A new book called "The Okinawa Way: How The World's Longest-Lived People Achieve Everlasting Health," by Dr Bradley J. Willcox, Dr D. Craig Willcox, and Dr Makoto Suzuki shares their secrets.
Their health statistics are quite amazing. The Okinawan population includes more than 400 centenarians out of a population of 1.3 million (about 33 per 100,000) compared with 5 to 10 per 100,000 in the United States. Heart disease is minimal, stroke rate is remarkably low, breast cancer is so rare that mammograms are not necessary and most aging men there have never even heard of prostate cancer.
What accounts for this astonishing Shangri-La-like situation? What do the Okinawans know and do that we don't? Is it in their genes? Can we emulate them? For starters, this book, based on a 25-year centenarian study among Okinawans, dispels the notion that genetics explains the population's advantage in avoiding illnesses like arterial disease. "When Okinawans and other Japanese grow up in another country and abandon their traditional ways," the authors argue, "they take on the same arterial disease risk as those in their adopted country. -- Their genes haven't changed but their lifestyles have.
So what it all boils down to is that catch-all word, lifestyle, which translates, in every book of this sort, into proper diet, exercise and "spirituality." And the Okinawans, it appears, have made it all a science that pays off. We learn that Okinawan elders eat a daily average of seven servings of vegetables and fruits, seven servings of grains and two servings of flavonoid-rich soy products. They also eat omega-3-rich fish several times a week and minimal dairy products and meat.
Exercise on the islands is a way of life. Martial arts, traditional dance (which many Okinawan men and women learn at an early age) and lots of gardening and walking are daily activities. Moreover, say the authors, the exercise connects organically with, and reinforces, spiritual beliefs "which may just give them an extra shot of healing power."
Reported in the New York Times
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Oscar Winners 'Live Longer'
May 22, 2001
Want to live longer? Win an Oscar, say scientists. A study by scientists at the University of Toronto of all the 762 actors and actresses to win the coveted golden statuette showed Oscar winners could look forward to an extra four years of life. And double Oscar winners are likely to outlive their colleagues by an extra six years.
On average, the stars who failed to win awards died aged 75.8 years, while their more successful colleagues got an extra 3.9 - 6 years more depending on how many Oscars they had won.
Dr Donald Redelmeier, one of the study authors, told the New York Post that success on this scale seemed to enhance your body's ability to cope with stress. "Once you get the Oscar it gives you an inner sense of peace and accomplishment that can last for your entire life. That alters the way your body copes with stress."
Dr Mark Griffiths, reader in psychology at Nottingham Trent University, told BBC News Online, that stars who had reached the pinnacle of their career were unlikely to suffer the same stress and resulting ill-health as the rest of us. "The thing that keeps you going is praise from your peers and getting favourable critical reviews. The pinnacle of your career must be winning an Oscar."
When George Burns won his Oscar in 1976, aged 80, he had only one thing to say: "It couldn't have happened to an older guy." He went on to live to over 100.
Read more on BBC News
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Clever People 'Live Longer'
April 5, 2001
A study begun in 1932 has found that people with higher IQs are more likely to outlive their less-smart brethren.
In that year 2,792 children of 11 had their IQs tested. In 1997 a follow-up study was made to see who was still alive. The results of that study are just to hand. It seems that those with the higher intelligence scores were much more likely to still be alive. Those still living at the age of 76 had an average IQ score of 102 at the age of 11, while those who had died by 1997 had an average score of 97.7. A 15-point lower score meant people had a fifth less chance of seeing their 76th birthday, while those with a 30-point disadvantage were 37% less likely than those with a higher IQ to live that long. On this point there was no difference between men and women.
Nobody really knows why IQ and longevity are so closely linked. The author of the study, Professor Lawrence Whalley, of the University of Edinburgh, thinks that more intelligent people look after themselves better and make better use of health services.
Read more on BBC News
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Advertising Can Make Us Well
A recent Wall Street Journal article (April 11, 2001) in their opinion section has documented some curious moves by the FDA in America to curb advertising by pharmaceutical companies which might tend to use the well-documented 'placebo effect' to their advantage.
For a long time it has been known that the efficacy of a drug depends on two factors -- the patient's relationship with the prescribing physician and the patient's belief in the drug's powers. It would make sense, then for the big drug companies to improve the cure rate of their products by showing them in the best possible light in their advertising, thus stimulating belief, which leads to the cure.
In drug ads, therefore "everybody looks young for their age, happy and energetic," according to the WSJ, even if the drug being advertised is aimed at HIV sufferers (one of the drugs the FDA is targeting).
The reality is that Madison Avenue is merely catching up to research from the University of Connecticut that was published two years ago and which really made the pills hit the fan. This study concluded that perhaps 75% of the success of popular antidepressants is due to placebo action. Later studies on other kinds of drugs has found something of the same effect with them.
The FDA wants advertising for drugs to be 'educational' and 'informative' so that they don't rely for their success on the placebo effect created by the advertisements themselves.
However, as the article says, a cure is a cure whether its by placebo or drug action. Maybe sugar pills given a medical-sounding name, 'sucrodex' perhaps, should be manufactured and marketed by Merck or Pfizer. This wonder drug could be heavily advertised as the cure for everything. What a bonanza! Of course they would have to install some unpleasant side-effects in 'sucrodex' to really convince people that the drug was doing them some good!
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It's Not The VDU That Gives You Eye Strain, It Could Be Your Boss!
A just-published study claims that one third of eye strain complaints attributed to computer monitors actually stem from stress. The study was performed by Dr Francisco Mocci, Institute of Occupational Medicine, University of Sassari, Italy, and colleagues.
Job stress strongly predicted eye strain, accounting for almost a third of the complaints. Job stress included lack of social support, group conflict, low self esteem, low levels of work satisfaction and underuse of skills. But where employees did feel supported, they were a third less likely to report eye strain.
Lighting did not seem to affect levels of eye strain, but noise and environmental tobacco smoke did. The authors conclude that a proportion of eye strain complaints are psychological in origin, and are an expression of workplace stress rather than having any true organic cause. They suggest that stimulating an emotionally supportive environment could alleviate the effects of stress.
Reported in Uniscience
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Patients Want 'Empathy, not Drugs'
February 23, 2001
Patients want good communication from their doctors, not just a prescription. We have been saying this for years when we lecture at major hospitals and universities. It is the relationship that heals.
Now a study by researchers at Southampton University in the UK has provided proof of what we have been saying. They studied 800 patients at three surgeries, asking them questions as they waited to see a doctor. 90% of them listed communication as their prime concern. They wanted the doctors to listen to them. Only 25% wanted a prescription and only 60% wanted any sort of examination.
Dr Paul Little, a GP from Romsey, Hampshire, and a senior lecturer and researcher at Southampton University, who led the research, said it had been a surprise patients wanted to be so involved. According to Dr Ramsey, the idea of "patient-centered care" had been around for some time, but that no one had asked the patients. "The current advice is for something called patient-centered care approach. But we know that most doctors aren't terribly patient-centered in the way they run the consultation."
This ties in with research done a few years ago at the University of Connecticut that showed that the effectiveness of drugs depended on the relationship between and, specifically, the amount of time that a physician took with his or her patients. The longer the consultation, the more effective the medications.
Read more on BBC News
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Bullying Can Make You Sick
January 25, 2001
A Finnish study, from the University of Helsinki, was reported in the current issue of Psychology Today. The researchers found that 66% of the victims of bullying developed chronic disease. Not surprisingly they called in sick 50% more than their co-workers. Bullying, like other forms of abuse, tends to lower the immune system and disease can a result. In fact the illness can be a protective mechanism which, in the case of bullying in the workplace, prevents the victim from going in to face more abuse. Childhood illnesses can have a similar protective 'secondary gain'.
The University of Helsinki study was reported in Psychology Today
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A Mother's Emotional State Can Effect Her Unborn Child
October 30, 2000
Women who worry a lot during pregnancy may be reducing the flow of blood to their wombs. A report in the British Medical Journal noted research that showed that the arteries of anxious mothers-to-be were narrower than a control group of less anxious mums-in-waiting. The reason is that the anxious women were producing more noradrenaline, a hormone which can narrow arteries. The finding supports the theory which we have been propounding for many years that a woman's emotional state can have a lasting effect on the health, and the mental development, of her foetus.
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About the Author
Dr Bob Murray is a widely published psychologist and expert on emotional health and optimal relationships. Together with his wife and long-term collaborator Alicia Fortinberry, he is founder of the highly successful Uplift Program, and author of Raising an Optimistic Child (McGraw-Hill, 2006) and Creating Optimism (McGraw-Hill, 2004).
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