The Japanese have long puzzled public health researchers because they are
such an apparent paradox: They have the world's lowest rates of heart disease and
the largest number of people that live to or beyond 100 years despite the fact that
most Japanese men smoke- and smoking counts as one of the strongest risk
factors for heart disease. So what's protecting Japanese men?
Two professors at the University of California at Berkeley hoped to find
out the answer. They investigated a pool of 12,000 Japanese men equally
divided into three groups: One group had lived in Japan for all their lives, and the
other two groups had emigrated to Hawaii or Northern California. It was found
that the rate of heart disease among Japanese men increased five times in
California and about half of that for those in Hawaii.
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