Journey Around the World Exploring the Longevity Diet

Author: Yasuo Yasuda
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features: After observing the diet and lifestyle of people in Lhasa, I felt they were indeed malnourished. Their staple food consists almost entirely of barley flour, as it is easy to store. Tibetans pour boiling water over the barley flour and mix it with dirty hands, sometimes adding butter tea (tea with salt, and butter is also salted) to it. While butter tea can serve as a source of calories, it leads to excessive salt intake. Due to the harsh natural environment, there are very few varieties of vegetables and fruits in Tibet. Buddhism prohibits killing, so Tibetans only consume a small amount of yak meat, which is usually salted. It is particularly troublesome that they also avoid eating fish and birds. In Tibet, birds or water burials are used for the dead because they believe that fish and birds are the souls of ancestors. Therefore, in addition to their staple food, Tibetans drink a lot of tea they make themselves, but this tea is problematic. They scrape some tea flakes from dry tea blocks, sprinkle salt on them, and add butter to make it tastier as butter tea. When entertaining guests, they always serve a cup of this butter tea. Such dietary habits inevitably lead to high blood pressure, as butter and salt is a dangerous combination. Cholesterol does not enter the bloodstream all at once from the intestines. Instead, it is absorbed in the intestines and carried along with lymph fluid flowing through the intestinal walls, moving upward along the large veins and entering the veins in the neck along with the lymph fluid. Since salt increases the function of lymph fluid that transports cholesterol, it also promotes cholesterol absorption. As a result, it is easier to develop atherosclerosis and heart attacks. Due to the lack of vegetables, there is insufficient potassium and dietary fiber to counteract the harmful effects of sodium. Not eating fish and birds also leads to insufficient protein in the blood vessels. It is natural for them to be prone to strokes. How can this diet be improved, and what foods should be added to achieve nutritional balance? On the other hand, the cause of sudden death among Tibetans is indeed heart attacks, or are there other underlying causes? This can be clarified through an autopsy to examine the condition of the heart and blood vessels. However, due to religious reasons, autopsies are not possible. Then, can the large arteries be examined? Since the blood vessels supplying the heart are connected to the large arteries, if atherosclerosis occurs in the large arteries, it can be inferred whether the heart is also atherosclerotic. The following year, we had the opportunity to return to Tibet. On this trip, the second-in-command of the Tibet Medical Research Institute served as our co-researcher. We demonstrated the urine collection device we had developed and explained that it should be used to collect urine within the count of 10. As he counted, his pronunciation of the numbers "YiCi, Ni-, Sin, Xi"