Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara, 105, longevity expert – The Boston Globe

NEW YORK Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara, who cautioned against gluttony and early retirement and vigorously championed annual medical checkups, climbing stairs regularly, and just having fun advice that helped make Japan the world leader in longevity died July 18 in Tokyo. Dutifully practicing the credo of physician heal thyself, he lived to 105.

When he died, Dr. Hinohara was chairman emeritus of St. Lukes International University and honorary president of St. Lukes International Hospital, both in Tokyo. The cause was respiratory failure, the hospital said.

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He is one of the persons who built the foundations of Japanese medicine, said Yoshihide Suga, Japans chief Cabinet secretary.

Dr. Hinohara ministered to victims of the firebombing of Tokyo during World War II. He was taken hostage in 1970 when Japanese Red Army terrorists hijacked a commercial jet. He was able to treat 640 of the victims of a radical cults subway poison gas attack in 1995 (all but one survived) because he had presciently equipped his hospital the year before to handle mass casualties like an earthquake.

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He also wrote a musical for children when he was 88, and a best-selling book when he was 101. He recently took up golf. Until a few months ago he was still treating patients, and he kept a date book with space for five more years of appointments.

In the early 1950s, Dr. Hinohara pioneered a system of complete annual physicals called human dry-dock that has been credited with helping to lengthen the average life span of Japanese people. Women born there today can expect to live to 87; men, to 80.

In the 1970s, he reclassified strokes and heart disorders commonly perceived as inevitable adult diseases that required treatment to lifestyle ailments that were often preventable.

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Dr. Hinohara insisted that patients be treated as individuals that a doctor needed to understand the patient as a whole as thoroughly as the illness. He also argued that palliative care should be a priority for the terminally ill.

He imposed few inviolable health rules, although he did recommend some basic guidelines: Avoid obesity, take the stairs (he did, two steps at a time), and carry your own packages and luggage. Remember that doctors cannot cure everything. Dont underestimate the beneficial effects of music and the company of animals; both can be therapeutic. Dont ever retire, but if you must, do so a lot later than age 65. And prevail over pain simply by enjoying yourself.

We all remember how as children, when we were having fun, we often forgot to eat or sleep, he often said. I believe we can keep that attitude as adults it is best not to tire the body with too many rules such as lunchtime and bedtime.

Dr. Hinohara maintained his weight at about 130 pounds. His diet was spartan: coffee, milk and orange juice with a tablespoon of olive oil for breakfast; milk and a few biscuits for lunch; vegetables with a small portion of fish and rice for dinner. He would consume 3 2 ounces of lean meat twice a week.

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Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara, 105, longevity expert - The Boston Globe