User:Kmorin2/sandbox

The Okinawa Program is a health and longevity program based on a twenty-five year long study done on the centenarians of the Ryukyu Islands, a small collection of islands south of Japan. These islands—including Okinawa, the largest—are home to a huge percentage of individuals living up to 100 years and over, giving the Ryukyu Islands one of the highest life expectancies in the world.

The books detailing the program, The Okinawa Program and its sister, The Okinawa Diet Plan, were written by three of the researchers of the longevity study: Japanese geriatrician and cardiologist Makoto Suzuki, M.D., Ph.D; Canadian Bradley J. Willcox, M.D., M.S.c from the Mayo Clinic; and Canadian medical anthropologist and gerontologist D. Craig Willcox, Ph.D. The books were designed to recreate as accurately as possible the lifestyles of the centenarians of Okinawa, and to make this longevity and weight-loss lifestyle accessible to the public.

The Program is divided into several sections based off the finding from the study, with emphasis on diet, low-intensity exercise, spirituality, stress management, and social relationships.

Diet
The diet portion of the Program relies less on the Western idea of diet—strictly cutting out specific foods such as carbs or proteins, or cutting calories for weight loss—and more on a well-rounded, plant-based diet that emphasizes variety and specific nutrition that increase longevity and quality of health and life.

The diet requires large amounts of fruits/vegetables and whole grains per day, from seven to thirteen servings. In addition to this, three servings of calcium and flavonoid foods and two servings of omega-3 foods are required per day, along with as abundance of high antioxidant teas (white, green black) and water, and a restriction on animal fats and meat.

Apart from the specific foods and nutritional guidelines of the Okinawa Program is the diet habits and traditions of the Ryukyu centenarians. First, the concept of hare hachi bu, which roughly translates into ‘eat until you are eight parts full’. Because the stretch receptors in a human stomach take approximately 20 minutes to activate (and thus tell you when you are full), eating slightly less—or eating until you are 80% full—is a good way to avoid overeating, which in turn promotes weight loss and longevity.

Another concept is of calorie restriction, which promotes longevity by reducing the amount of free radicals in the body: when the body turns food into energy, free radicals are a natural by product. Therefore, the less calories eaten, the less free radicals. However, this does not mean militant calorie restriction seen in popular Western diets: rather, the emphasis on a plant-based diet and a reduction of fat and animal products typical to the Okinawa Program naturally follows a calorie restrictive diet.

There is also an emphasis on specific fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices which are thought to be particularly good for health and longevity. These include turmeric, sweet potato, firm tofu, jasmine tea, arrowroot, and seaweeds.

Exercise
Despite their advanced age, the Ryukyu centenarians had little issue with mobility. This is partially due to their health from diet, but also from frequent low impact exercise. Tai chi, martial arts, gardening, and walking are popular exercises among the Ryukyus, who have retained their mobility by using their bodies daily instead of succumbing to the inertia of age. Not only does frequent exercise preserve mobility, but it also increases and preserve muscle mass (including the heart), bone mass, and cardiovascular health, which is crucial to overall health and longevity. The Program defines ‘overall fitness’ in the combination of aerobic fitness, anaerobic fitness, and flexibility: one cannot be ‘fit’ if they are lacking in any area.

Spirituality
Spirituality and religion, while not prescribed as conventional medicine, offer the benefits of connectedness, inner peace, “meaning and purpose [in] life” (208), and a reduction of “psychological distress” (211). Specific benefits fall under categories such as: behavioural, where benefits result from specific behaviours like “maintaining purity of mind and body” (212) etc.; social, where benefits result from “supportive relationships” and “community” from church, religious gatherings, etc. (212); psychological, where benefits result from “help in addressing life’s most fundamental issues such as the meaning of life and death, human relationships, ethical behaviours, and a belief in a higher power” (212-213); and physiological, where benefits result from stress reduction that religious traditions like prayer and meditation often provide (213).

Stress Management
Because of the effect of stress on the body, the Okinawa Program promotes active stress management in the form of reduction techniques such as meditation, exercise, and muscle relaxation.

There is also an aspect of personality and emotional control: often, the stress-driven ‘type A’ personality and difficult emotions like anger and negativity increase the amount of ‘bad’ stress, and so increase incidence of specific illnesses that are effected by stress, including heart disease, anxiety, depression, etc.