The Myth of Japanese Longevity

Necessary context for this article can be found in an earlier Hacker News comment<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5196734" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5196734</a><p>by another participant on an earlier article from the same blog:<p>&#62; &#62; It appears you've made some sort of resolution to publish and promote a blog entry per day in 2013. 40 entries in 41 days this year vs. 46 in all of 2012. You should reconsider - whatever your reasons were, I doubt they included a desire to develop a reputation for presenting topics that were sensationalized and thinly researched [1] produced with a pace that ensures discredited theories dont get reviewed.<p>[1] <a href="http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2013/02/drug-companies-stop-hiding-your-data.html%E3%80%80" rel="nofollow">http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2013/02/drug-companies-stop-h...</a><p>&#62; Wow, nice spot and they have all been submitted to HN. I have never seen anyone's submission history be so hell bent on self promotion:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=techdog" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=techdog</a><p>That was followed up by another set of comments:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5240084" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5240084</a><p>&#62; I'm beginning to flag these posts.<p>I agree.

Randomly plugging numbers. Say there are like 250,000 'undead' people. Say that on average they've been on dead for average of 50 years (crazy! I know!). This works out to an extra 12.5 million years of life. There are 127 million Japanese. If we assume average life expectancy of like 70 years, works out to 8.9 billion years of life. If we drop those 12.5 million or so years that don't exist... we're still at like 8.9 billion years.

This is unbelievable: it looks like they are faking child births, too! The rate is up a whopping 15%.<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20120203092942/https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ja.html" rel="nofollow">http://web.archive.org/web/20120203092942/https://www.cia.go...</a><p><a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ja.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...</a><p>Also, from my experience smoking seems to be rare both in Tokyo and the countryside, so I'd like the see some statistics about Japanese being "smoking fiends" before I assertTrue().

This article is sensationalist and false. If one reads the CBS page linked from the article (<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/10/world/main6853038.shtml" rel="nofollow">http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/10/world/main6853038....</a>), we find the following:<p>"An official at the Health Ministry's statistics bureau said Friday's survey does not change Japan's status as a fast-aging nation because life expectancy calculations are not based on family registration records."

Methinks that the page has been defaced. This is what I saw when I opened the link: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/WHHxE7n.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/WHHxE7n.png</a> NSFW<p>Viewing the page source shows the following as the background image: <a href="http://www.blogblog.com/1kt/watermark/body_background_birds.png" rel="nofollow">http://www.blogblog.com/1kt/watermark/body_background_birds....</a> NSFW<p>Interestingly, the same page, viewed in xombrero, shows nothing amiss.<p>Yet in Chromium, the following is what I see when I load the background image as linked to in the page source: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/kJ5veiA.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/kJ5veiA.png</a> NSFW<p>I'm not the only one who sees it.

Weak article. They assert there is a problem with the data, point out at least one flaw, conclude that the entire data set is wrong and then attempt to draw conclusions from it. The author seems to be trying to use negative evidence, i.e. induction, to prove something, like in the following example:<p>Argument: The average age of a population is 10.<p>Counter-argument: At least on one of the numbers is greater than it should be.<p>Conclusion: The average age of a population is 8.

" Sogen Kato, Tokyo's oldest man, as found on his 111th birthday. Kato did not respond to our requests for an interview. "<p>hidden joke. I'm glad I caught it.

No this is not entirely true. The Kyoto region of Japan, was a subject of survey sometime back, I can assure you that I read it myself, and it included few more regions of the world proven by a UN collaborated study.<p>That study is mentioned here: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercentenarian" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercentenarian</a><p>also, see the verified records <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_people" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_people</a><p>A extended list: <a href="http://www.grg.org/Adams/E.HTM" rel="nofollow">http://www.grg.org/Adams/E.HTM</a><p>Publications: <a href="http://www.supercentenarians.org/publications.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.supercentenarians.org/publications.htm</a>

<i>"CIA's web page on Japan's death rate shows Japanese mortality as having dropped by 10% in one year, in 2012"</i><p>10% sounds like a lot to me, but that 2011 earthquake/tsunami will have caused a peak in death rate. Likely, there also was a stress related peak outside the directly affected areas. That peak would be followed by a through, just like one sees elsewhere after a hot summer or harsh winter (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_displacement" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_displacement</a>)<p>Ten percent fewer deaths would be, I guess, about 60,000 'excess' deaths in the year of the tsunami and 60,000 fewer in the next year. Does anybody know whether that would be feasible?

What's interesting to me isn't the fraud but the fact that the fraudsters keep the dead people around. Why not bury them in secret?

That's hardly new, the Japanese have known for quite some time that their records about the elderly are "a little bit" off.

While this article makes it somewhat sensationalistic linking it to welfare fraud, perhaps, the majority of "unregistered deaths" are the ones dying alone.<p>There are so many cases in Japan that people die alone, and people not noticing it until their neighbors reports unusual odors, which may or may not happen. (although census should supposed to be catching that...)

Our medicare/medicaid scam artists have a thing or two to learn.

From the linked article in the OP:<p>"An official at the Health Ministry's statistics bureau said Friday's survey does not change Japan's status as a fast-aging nation because life expectancy calculations are not based on family registration records."<p>Move on, nothing to see here.<p>20/~100 of the verified oldest people were japanese according to<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_verified_oldest_people" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_verified_oldest_peo...</a><p>That's a handsome statistic right there.

Interesting. Sounds almost like a conspiracy though, it would be nice to see some confirmation. If it's true, then a lot of government numbers will need to be updated, and it could have impact on health studies.

It is bunk that Japan is known for good bookkeeping. Some large Japanese financials are still using paper-based risk assessment and transactions. Some are losing millions of dollars each month to human error.

Is there some sort of campaign against the Japanese healthcare system now?

Wow!! Shocked!!!

Maybe, maybe not.<p>The top cause of death in Japan is Amyloidosis:<p><a href="http://www.nationmaster.com/country/ja-japan/mor-mortality" rel="nofollow">http://www.nationmaster.com/country/ja-japan/mor-mortality</a><p>Amyloidosis, in case you're wondering, is a protein disorder most commonly found in super-centarians (people 110 years old or older):<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyloidosis" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyloidosis</a><p>So not only are the welfare fraudsters great at hacking the social support system without getting caught, they're also really knowledgeable about arcane disease patterns in super-centarians, just to give their lie that extra ring of truth once they decide to finally leave the dole. And... somehow... they're conning medical professionals into reporting this as a cause of death for mummified elders.<p>While a large number on the face of it, I'm not even convinced 230,000 missing elderly is statistically significant given the size of the population. [1]<p>I usually give articles a stronger benefit of the doubt, but this is from the site that's arguing that lung cancer isn't really related to smoking, and questionable claims about the causes of autism.[2]<p>Now I'm wondering, is the blog's title an easter egg? Is the whole point to just take some crazy proposition and see how many people will buy it? Is this entire blog just trolling the internet?<p>[1] EDIT: Someone ran the numbers, thanks icegreentea <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5326622" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5326622</a><p>[2] Hacker News discussions raised interesting counterpoints, questioning large gaps reasoning in previous pieces: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5196579" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5196579</a><p>Perhaps the best comment: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5196734" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5196734</a><p>"It appears you've made some sort of resolution to publish and promote a blog entry per day in 2013. 40 entries in 41 days this year vs. 46 in all of 2012. You should reconsider - whatever your reasons were, I doubt they included a desire to develop a reputation for presenting topics that were sensationalized and thinly researched produced with a pace that ensures discredited theories dont get reviewed."