Ikigai and Mortality

Objective: To investigate the association between the sense of “life worth living (ikigai)” and the cause specific mortality risk. The psychological factors play important roles in morbidity and mortality risks. However, the association between the negative psychological factors and the risk of mortality is inconclusive. Methods: The Ohsaki Study, a prospective cohort study, was initiated on 43,391 Japanese adults. To assess if the subjects found a sense of ikigai, they were asked the que...

 Hot Red Chili Consumption Lowers Mortality

The evidence base for the health effects of spice consumption is insufficient, with only one large population-based study and no reports from Europe or North America. Our objective was to analyze the association between consumption of hot red chili peppers and mortality, using a population-based prospective cohort from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) III, a representative sample of US noninstitutionalized adults, in which participants were surveyed from 1988 to...

 Ikigai and Mortality

Among the 43,391 subjects enrolled, 25,596 (59.0%) indicated that they found a sense of ikigai, 15,782 (36.4%) indicated they were uncertain, and 2013 (4.6%) indicated they did not find a sense of ikigai. As compared with those who found a sense of ikigai, those who did not were more likely to be unmarried, unemployed, have a lower educational level, have bad or poor self-rated health, have a high level of perceived mental stress, have severe or moderate bodily pain, have limitation of physic...

 Cardiorespiratory Fitness (CRF) Lowers Cancer Risk

A well-established, graded, inverse association exists between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) as well as all-cause mortality in numerous healthy and clinical adult populations.1- 3 Compared with those classified in the lowest CRF category (<7.9 metabolic equivalents [METs]), individuals in the highest CRF category (≥10.9 METs) have a 1.6- to 1.7-fold lower risk of CVD and all-cause mortality, respectively.4 Accordingly, measurement of CRF via for...