Eat Like a Japanese Person If You Want to Live Longer

Move over, Mediterranean diet, there's a new game in town—the Japanese diet.

The average life expectancy in Japan is 83 years and the obesity rate is in the ballpark of 3.5 percent—drastically lower than the 30 percent we see in other industrialized nations.

Clearly there is something in the Japanese diet that warrants further scientific scrutiny, and that's exactly what scientists at Tokyo's National Centre for Global Health and Medicine have done.

In 2005, Japan released its "spinning top" diet, which emphasized water, tea, and exercise above all, but also a balanced intake of grains, vegetables, fruits, and plenty of fish and meat. Lead researcher Kayo Kurotani focused on adherence to these guidelines and sought to understand its link with mortality.

What he and his team ended up finding was that both men and women who adhered to the spinning top diet had a 15 percent lower total mortality rate over 15 years, which the scientist attributed to a reduction in cerebrovascular disease. The study sample was made up of 36,624 men and 42,970 women aged 45 to 75 who had no history of cancer, stroke, ischemic heart disease, or chronic liver disease.

In a press statement the researchers said, "Our findings suggest that balanced consumption of energy, grains, vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, eggs, soy products, dairy products, confectionaries, and alcoholic beverages can contribute to longevity by decreasing the risk of death, predominantly from cardiovascular disease, in the Japanese population." In other words, the spinning top works pretty well.

So, there you have it. For you Japanophiles out there, keep enjoying your regular intake of sashimi, ramen, and dashi—just make sure to balance it out with water, tea, and exercise, as per the spinning top. But beware: a strict diet of only tonkotsu ramen probably won't have the same wondrous effects on your health.