These are apparently the key traits to living a long life. It’s been recently reported that Japanese women had the longest life expectancy in the world for the 25th straight year in 2009, with an average life span of 86.44 years. That’s a lot of years! Japanese men, being no slouches themselves, saw their average life expectancy register a record high with 79.59 years.
Average lifespans increased from 2008 by 0.39 year for Japanese women and 0.30 year for Japanese men. So what is their secret? Less air pollution? Healthier routine of constant anime watching while consuming large amounts of organic ramen noodles? Not even close. Turns out the medical advancements in Japan are just a wee bit more efficient than in the United States. It seems that while the U.S. puts their focus on TV doctors who pop Vicodin and have snarky sarcastic comebacks, Japan has improved treatment of the three major causes of death among Japanese (cancer, cardiac disorders and strokes) well as pneumonia.
Unless an influenza epidemic breaks out, expect for Japanese people to continue living longer each year. We can only hope that Doctor Cox would be behind such a brilliant plan.