Jason’s Random Thoughts

You’ve got to hand it to the Japanese.  They have the lowest murder rate in the world, the lowest number of alcoholics in any non-Muslim nation, and the least numer of heavy-set people.  That said, there sure are a lot of unexplained deaths, heavy drinkers and people suffering from metabolic syndrome.

WTF is ‘metabolic syndrome’, you ask?  From what I can tell, it’s Japan’s way of saying “your unhealthy lifestyle is okay, and your stomach is big because you have a disease.”

Excuse me while I roll my eyes with dramatic flair.

Japan is a nation of beer drinking, meat eating men and women who are about as active as any average city-dwelling citizen in Canada or the United States.  That is to say, they’re not very active anymore.  From what I’ve witnessed in my time here, shopping seems to be the biggest workout a person can get.  Walking all the way from the car to the mall … Walking through the stores … Carrying all the stuff you bought ….  Heck, it sounds like a chore more than something people would actually want to do on their only day off each week.

That said, it comes as no surprise that as we get past the big Four-Oh in life we start to develop a little bit of a tummy.  But for many Japanese, this is no biologically normal slow-down of our metabolism.  No.  This is something far more sinister in nature:  a disease called Metabolic Syndrome.  Luckily, no sooner was this terrible disease discovered that pharmaceutical companies had some ‘medicine’ to help prevent our bodies from bulging at the waist.

Excuse me, but I need to roll my eyes again.

Suffice to say, the market for medicines that claim to prevent metabolic syndrome is growing quite fast and the scheduled introduction of a new medical checkup system for this disease is believed to be one factor driving the sales of such products.

Starting from April of 2008, corporate health insurance associations and municipal governments will be required to conduct a special medical checkup for people between 40 and 74 to identify those suffering from this syndrome.  According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, about 57-million people will be subject to the tests and about one-third are expected to show signs of the syndrome.

I wonder if doctors will just look at someone’s waistline and say “Congratulations!  You’re not fat!”

Seriously.  The amount of money being spent on supposed prevention medications in this country is absolutely stupid.  According to Rohoto Pharmaceutical, herbal medicine has seen sales of over 3-billion Yen in 2007.  Among these medicines is something called Bofutsushosan, which promises to reduce fat around our abdomen.

So far, the health ministry has approved some 210 herbal medicines to combat various “ailments”, and it’s pretty easy for companies to develop and win approval for whatever new mixture of roots and flower petals they concoct.  Often the wait time is less than two years.

Kinda makes one wonder if there’s any way an ordinary person can get in on the action.

Not to be outdone by the pharmaceutical companies, electronic manufacturers have started developing health appliances that offer services that combine the measurement of health data with medical services.  Companies like Hitachi, who has developed a system under which customers will be able to measure how much they move and how many calories they burn.  This data is then transmitted to a portable terminal and can be sent to a doctor, allowing them to judge just how fat and lazy a patient might be.

Other companies, like Matsushita Electric, are developing small machines like the Joba, which went on sale back in 2000.  The Joba has sold over 300,000 units so far and people burn calories by balancing on the device while it gyrates.  This little horseback machine is considered to be a forerunner in the field of anti-metabolic syndrome appliances and is currently in its fifth generation.

What I find most comical about this whole ‘metabolic syndrome’ scheme is that people actually think they can remain skinny and in good physical shape while doing no actual labour.  Back in the day, people would do a little exercise to lose some weight.  It’s sad to think that people are now being brainwashed by pharmaceuticals to believe that every freakin’ thing that causes our bodies to deviate from what we see in TV advertisements is some disease, condition or syndrome.  There is nothing wrong with realizing that we’re getting older and putting on the pounds.  If a person really isn’t happy about it, perhaps they could take up jogging or going to the gym for a few hours a week.  These shortcuts to the “perfect body” will only make things worse in the long run.

That said, there’s definately some money in it for those of us with a little ambition.  I’m off now to buy and stock a vending machine with some of this herbal medicine stuff.  If there’s really a few billion Yen to be made, then I want in on the action.

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I hate being sick.  Since December 2nd, I’ve had the unlikely privilege of getting sick not twice, not thrice, but quice.  Is that even a word?  Well, it is now.

After missing a week at work for a really bad stomach flu, I managed to make all five days this week.  It was pretty difficult, though, which is why there have been very few posts of late.  I don’t think I would have been sick this much, though, if there was a little bit of heat at my place of employment.

It’s not super cold in this part of Japan by any stretch of the imagination, but when it’s 4 degrees Celsius outside, it might be a good idea to make sure it’s a little bit warmer inside.  Oddly enough, this doesn’t seem to be the case with my employer.  At the end of November it was kinda funny that the air conditioner was still set to cold.  A week into December it was a little annoying that the air conditioner was set to cold.  Now, at the end of December, it’s freakin’ retarded that the air conditioner is set to cold.  In order to change it, we need permission from head office in Tokyo.  In order to get permission, we need to ask a specific person.  To speak to that person, we need to wait until next freakin’ year because he’s on vacation.

Not only are people paying more attention to the cold than their work, but the overall quality of the work is deteriorating.  It’s not just like this at one location, either.  I’ve been to four other locations in the last month and they’re all just as cold.  Why the cold air?  Why does the air system blow warm air from 9 pm to 9 am, then switch to cold for the rest of the day?  Heck, maybe I should ask a better question: why the heck are the air vents blowing down directly on everyone in the room?  I don’t know how many of us have started moving the tables a little bit in the larger rooms just to avoid the sub-zero temperatures coming from the air vents, but this is impossible in the smaller rooms.

I’ve really tried to stick to the Japanese work ethic, where I go to work unless I am dead.  But if this situation keeps up, my work will be the death of me.  We’re not supposed to complain, and it’s insanely easy to replace someone in my line of work, which means I’m stuck in a lovely Catch 22 of idiotic proportions.

I’ve been looking for work more in line with my skills since day one of landing in Japan, and the search hasn’t stopped.  However, I think it’s time to put much more effort into it.  It’s clear that I cannot work in a situation where I am bombarded with cold air long beyond a human’s normal endurance level and where I must be in close proximity to forty or more people for any length of time.

It might be true that working with computers for so many years has allowed my immune system to get a little lazy, but I’m not willing to spend every day off recovering from some other ailment.  It’s not fair to Reiko, and it’s not fair to me.

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When we’re young, we have this incredible sense that nothing can stop us, especially some disease.  So we’re sick for a day or two, these things happen, right?  But at what point do we say to ourselves ‘I’m not as young as I used to be’?

For me, the answer is ‘this week’.  For the last seven days I’ve been fighting the flu, followed immediately by a cold.  All in all, I’ve managed to miss only three days of work, too.  Alas, my body is not quite as young as it used to be, and my careless actions have actually caused much more damage than expected.

Yesterday morning I was not feeling too hot.  My stomach said it wanted to vomit, but I rarely let myself do that.  So off to work I went … kinda.  The train seemed to have a very quick reaction with my stomach.  After 15 minutes I knew that making a mess was inevitable, it was just a matter of where.  I got off at the next stop (Inuyamayuen, for those concerned) and tried to make my way to the bathrooms.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get that far and left a terrible little mess right next to the station master’s office
Talk about embarassing.

Reiko and her father came to pick me up and from there we went straight to a medical clinic here in Kakamigahara.  The doctor said that my esophagus was in terrible shape and that I shouldn’t even be speaking for the next few days.  For a person that relies on his voice to work, this is terrible news.  To make matters worse, Reiko has her own medical conditions to worry about … anything I add is only extra stress.

Gomen ne, Reiko.

So here I am, at home for the next week, with nothing to do but recover.  I can’t help but think how improbable this would have been 10 years ago.  A flu, cold and anything short of a brain tumor would have been easily handled by whatever magical element in our body that staves off disease.  So why is it so weak now?

It’s true that we’re always getting older, but isn’t there a better way for us to age with dignity?  I’d rather look old but have a strong immune system than the inverse

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Ah, what fun it is to be sick.  I’ve been battling a multitude of Japanese illnesses since Sunday, and it’s leaving my body incredibly exhausted.  I don’t know what kind of instruction set these Asian viruses have in their DNA, but it’s insanely strong, whatever it is.

Saturday night the first sympoms appeared, where my throat was a little scratchy after getting home and I was developing a little bit of a headache, which is nothing new.  The next morning was awful, and I had difficulty eating and even getting out of bed.  Luckily, Reiko was there to take care of me, but it really put a dent into our Sunday plans.  Monday I had to call in sick to work, and Tuesday was also written off.  Not wanting to miss too much work, I forced myself to go in on Wednesday and was greeted with a lovely deep voice that required way too much energy to use.  On top of that, I was having a problem with saying vowels and they would often disappear into a squeak.  Although Reiko asked if I would take Thursday off, I said that I would go in.  I have a few responsibilities to some students and I had made a promise to never miss a particular person’s lesson.  Unfortunately, I had already missed the Tuesday class with them, so I could not miss the next.  On the way to the office, I managed to get my voice to work relatively decently, even though it was quite a bit lower than normal.  That said, 10 minutes into the 3-hour conversation, my voice started to disappear again.  By the end of the day, it was almost completely gone.

Fun?  Wow!

So it came as no surprise when, last night, I started coughing uncontrollably.  The throat had been stripped almost raw, and now I was succeptable to any infection that might find its way past the double-protection of my scarf and face mask.  Getting to sleep was a bit of a chore, and I managed to wake everyone in the house while I was at it.  Luckily, both Reiko and her mother are quite skilled when it comes to medicine and what to do, so they looked after me.  Of course, I would have preferred if they didn’t have to wake up and take care of me, a grown man.

Now, today, we went to the hospital again and had a bunch of things checked.  It looks like I’ll live, which is a good thing, and that I’m in the final stages of the Flu/Cold/Whatever-Else.  I can’t wait to feel healthy again … I feed bad not only for Reiko and her family, but also for my co-workers.  I’m still rather new at this place, but have had to take 3 days off already.  The worst part about this is that it makes me look unreliable.

Alright, on that note, I think I’ll take a short nap.  This doesn’t seem to be making much sense on the re-read, so perhaps I’ll update it a little later.

Being sick sucks.

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It’s a question that many of us ask from time to time, and one that has no right or wrong answer.  History tells us that we are now living two and three times longer than our ancestors did only centuries ago.  Living to be over 100, while incredible to family members, no longer gets a second glance from the general public or the newspapers.  As it stands, the oldest known human on Earth is a 114 year young woman named Edna Parker in Indiana, USA.  But what if 114 could become the next 30?

Researchers at Kyoto University have recently discovered how to create biologically compatible stemcells from our skin.  This process, while incredibly exciting, could lead to a drastic change in the human condition and create lasting repercussions on our societies, cultures and social structures.  For all the ethical dilemmas this process has solved, it opens the doors to so many more.

Professor Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University explains that the procedure that converts our healthy epidermal cells to those that mimic the incredibly dynamic stem cells is both painless and quick.  For the moment, this is limited only to creating neurons and heart tissues (both very important), but this limitation won’t last long.  Once the cells are cultivated, they can be given specific instructions and injected back into our bodies.  This could also potentially provide cures to various cancers, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and many other debilitating diseases and conditions.  Once perfected, we will have the ability to repair damaged organs, joints, muscles and any other tissue.  Heck, it might even be possible to regrow limbs under the right conditions.  With applications like this, what’s going to stop us from finding ways to increase our limited lifetimes to something a little less finite?

It’s no secret that we fear our own death, and many also worry about losing those close to us.  So wouldn’t life be so much more enjoyable if we could live for five or six centuries?  If we can repair hideously debilitating diseases, what’s to stop us from reversing the aging process?  Given the resources, our parents and grandparents could regain some of the things age has taken away.  I don’t know about you, but if I could live for a few centuries with the same levels of mobility and health as I have now, then I’d be hard pressed not to sign up.

There are some problems, though.  If nobody is dying, then we will have a serious resource problem on our hands.  Little issues like whether we should exploit national preservation parks or untamed continents will become moot as we scramble to accommodate a hyper actively growing population.  Retirement would become a thing of the past as everyone could essentially stay at a company for centuries, making it impossible for new recruits to rise through the ranks to leadership and breeding contempt for our elders.  Land values would skyrocket further as there would be no inherited properties unless an accident occurred.  Transportation systems would become overloaded as never before in the space of one generation.

It would be a massive logistics headache that would not only change our existing relationship with the Earth, but the very foundations of our societies.

One area I’m not too sure about, though, is how well something like a 500-year lifespan would be received by the religious communities.  Would extending our life cross the line between medicine and playing God?  As it is, humans are playing God everyday as we search to unlock the mysteries of the universe and everything contained within.  This could be the very thing that makes or breaks the massive legions of religious followers.  “God promises eternal life.  Science promises a few centuries in exchange for a good chunk of money.  Make your choice.”

Will any god accept us if we modify our bodies to escape the unescapable?  Can reincarnation occur if we never die?  Of course, if time is not a factor in the reincarnation process, then this is not an issue.
Of course, much of this is just speculation.  I’ve read far too many science fiction books that have used a modified cure for cancer and AIDS as the precursor to semi-immortal humans.  We wouldn’t be impervious to death, of course.  But we would be biologically capable of living hundreds of years before growing tired of life.

Personally, I don’t want to live forever.  One or two hundred years max, and that’s only if I remain mobile.  I refuse to spend the last of my days in an old-age home.  How about you?  How long is ‘long enough’?

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