I don't know if it's been mentioned already but there was an interesting article in The Times today about an elderly Japanese man that caught my attention.
It also mentioned that back in 1950 there were only 97 Japanese people over the age of 100. Today there are more than 92,000 of whom 81,000 are women.
Here is a share token and also some parts of the article (with typical Times misspelling - they're getting almost as bad as the Guardian [centurion, instead of centenarian]):
https://www.thetimes.com/article/e15e32c0-86b8-470f-9233-507d3a270bfd?shareToken=e96101f2aab774619c534b701f5ab255
100 not out: the secrets of Japan’s ‘Super Elderlies’
The runner Yoshimitsu Miyauchi is setting records in his eleventh decade in a country where the number of centurions has reached once unimaginable levels
Like all record-breaking athletes, Yoshimitsu Miyauchi has a rigorous routine of daily training and exercise. It begins before dawn with bends and stretches, followed by a 40-minute run through the paddy fields and lanes close to his home village of Gokabeppucho.
After breakfast he labours in the fields for several hours, tending to the rice, sweet potatoes and giant radishes on his small farm. It is this regime of training and tough outdoor exertion that has helped Miyauchi to scores of victories, including a new world record the other week in the 800m — to which he hopes to add a record in the 1,500m in a tournament this month. Just one thing elevates these achievements from the impressive to the extraordinary: Miyauchi is 100 years old.
Born 15 years before the Second World War, he has outlived all of his contemporaries and one of his four children. The latest of his five great-grandchildren is 98 years younger than him; his best friends are old men a generation his juniors. Even to walk 1500m, at the age of 100, would be regarded by many as a miracle, but Miyauchi runs it faster than anyone his age.
He competes, literally, in a class of his own: M-100, for athletes in their eleventh decade of life. His latest record in the 800m at the Kyushu Masters Track and Field championship in August, was by default. No one his age has ever claimed the record; he got around the track in 8 minutes 24.36 seconds in a temperature of 34C.
Having given up running in his twenties because of work, he took it up up again at the age of 65 and today his medals, trophies, and certificates fill several cabinets in his home. “I won the Japan record in the 5,000 when I was 65, and I’ve been breaking world records ever since,” he says. “It’s amazing — I just get better every time!” And yet in this country, men and women such as Miyauchi are more and more common.
With an average life expectancy of 81 for men and 87 for women, Japan is well established as the most long-lived nation in the world. Six of the 20 oldest individuals ever, all of them women, have been Japanese, as was the world’s oldest man. Many, not surprisingly, are frail — the world’s oldest living person, 116-year old Tomiko Itooka, who succeeded to the title in August, lives quietly in a nursing home near Kobe and does not grant interviews.
As the the number of centenarians increases to once unimaginable levels, a new elite class has emerged: the Super Elderlies. In the arts, business and most strikingly of all, in sport, a small number of extremely old Japanese are not only keeping their heads above water, but surging forward.
There is Yuko Tamagawa, a player of the stringed shamisen, who is performing at 101. There is Matsue Kurotaki, who runs a roasted bun shop in the town of Hakodate at the age of 100. Tomoko Horino entered the Guinness Book of Records last year as the world’s oldest beauty consultant — at 101, she still earns 100,000 yen (£530) a month selling products for the Japanese cosmetics maker, Pola.
The artist Hiroko Inoue is still painting at 105. One of Japan’s greatest and most acclaimed living artists, Yayoi Kusama, by contrast is a youthful 95. An artist of a different kind was still going strong into his 70s: Shigeo Tokuda, the world’s oldest pornographic film actor, star of such works as Maniac Training of Lolitas and Forbidden Elderly Care.
In 1950 there were 97 Japanese centenarians. At the end of September last year there were 92,000, 81,600 of them women. Last year 47,000 Japanese received a congratulatory letter from the prime minister (the Japanese equivalent of a telegram from the King). In 2009, when the number surpassed 40,000, the government had to reduce the size of the silver sake cup given to people who turned 100 — the cost was becoming prohibitive.
What is the secret of longevity and why is it longer in Japan than anywhere else? Miyauchi’s case illustrates several of the factors. Lives in Japan are notably longer in the countryside in small communities such as Gokabeppucho, where the pace of life is less stressful than in the metropolis.
High quality and universal medical care are important factors: when Miyauchi had bowel cancer six years ago, it was quickly diagnosed and whipped out — “although I did have to miss the Kagoshima marathon,” he says, with regret. The traditional Japanese diet, rich in fish and lightly cooked vegetables and low in fat, has much to do with it. But Miyauchi still enjoys a glass of potent shochu spirit once a day.
Most obvious in his case is an ebullience and love of life, uncomplicated by anguish about ageing and its inevitable end. “All men age and all men die,” he says. “I will too, one day. The important thing is how to spend every single day well.”
His focus now is on the championship this month in Kyoto, where hopes for another bag of M-100 world records. His daughter, herself an old lady, will be there cheering him on. “My family all support me,” he says. “They cheer me on by the track. They shout after me, ‘Keep running!’”