Japan is one of the healthiest countries in the world with the third-highest life expectancy. Also, Japanese visit doctors at least 14 times in a year and have a life expectancy of 83.3 years based on a 2013 statistics. But Japan is still struggling with a number of illnesses.
Common Illnesses in Japan
In this page, we will list the most common illnesses in Japan and why Japanese are wary of these diseases.
1. Cancer
Since 1981, the leading cause of death in Japan is cancer. In 1947, it was noticed that the death rate of cancer cases gradually increased in the coming years. And over 353,000 people died in cancer in 2010, a devastatingly one-third of Japan’s death.
Moreover, cancer frequently hits on the prime of life of Japanese leading to the illness being responsible for the death of 30% of early-fifties Japanese men.
Also, 40 percent of Japanese women’s causes of death are cancer in their late thirties.
The common type of cancer diseases are in colorectum, breast, stomach, prostate, gastrate, pancreas and lungs.
2. Mental Health
Japan’s suicide rate is high and the stigma in seeing therapy and treatment prevents Japanese to seek professional help. Mental health and depression is traditionally seen as a character flaw rather than a preventive illness thus, people with mental health issues worry more about losing their jobs when their employer finds out rather than seeing a psychiatrist.
In one survey, one out of three Japanese worry about getting depressed and only a few openly see mental health experts. One of the leading causes of depression in Japanese is stress from work or overwork known as karoshi.
3. Pneumonia
One of the major reasons of death from pneumonia is due to aging and it is the third common cause of death in Japan in 2011. Aspiration pneumonia or lung infection has increasing numbers in the Japanese eldery and this is due to swallowing dysfunction. Also, the mortality rate is higher in the eldery than in young Japanese. Also, the population of aging in Japan is extraordinarily high and medicine economics and medication for pneumonia is becoming increasingly important.
Japan manages pneumonia in the eldery by further implementation of preventive measures, administering appropriate health and antibiotic treatment and evaluating accurately the severity of pneumonia.
Conclusion
What do you think are the major factors of these common illnesses? Do you have any ideas that may help improve Japan’s health to further decrease the cases of these illnesses? Let us know in the comments.
References:
https://www.nippon.com/en/features/h00211/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5804998/
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