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The Okinawa Program : How the World's Longest-Lived People Achieve Everlasting Health--And How You Can Too | 
 enlarge | Authors: Bradley J. Willcox, D. Craig Willcox, Makoto Suzuki
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $4.53
You Save: $10.42 (70%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  65 reviews
Sales Rank: 45294
Media: Paperback
Edition: First Paperback Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0609807501
Dewey Decimal Number: 613
EAN: 9780609807507
ASIN: 0609807501
Publication Date: March 12, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Minor shelf/edge wear. Uncreased spine.Stain along top edge,clean text unmarked,book is in very good condition SHIPS QUICKLY!!
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Product Description
“If Americans lived more like the Okinawans, 80 percent of the nation’s coronary care units, one-third of the cancer wards, and a lot of the nursing homes would be shut down.” —From The Okinawa Program
The Okinawa Program, authored by a team of internationally renowned experts, is based on the landmark scientifically documented twenty-five-year Okinawa Centenarian Study, a Japanese Ministry of health–sponsored study. This breakthrough book reveals the diet, exercise, and lifestyle practices that make the Okinawans the healthiest and longest-lived population in the world. With an easy-to-follow Four-Week Turnaround Plan, nearly one hundred fast, delicious recipes, and a moderate exercise plan, The Okinawa Program can dramatically increase your chances for a long, healthy life
Amazon.com Review
If ever there were a prescription for longevity, the folks of Okinawa, a collection of islands strung between Japan and Taiwan, have found it. Considered the world's healthiest people, residents of this tropical archipelago routinely live active, independent lives well into their 90s and 100s. Their rates of obesity, heart disease, osteoporosis, memory loss, menopause, and breast, colon and prostate cancer rank far below the rates for these illnesses in America and other industrialized countries. In fact, researchers believe many Okinawans are physically younger than their chronological ages. In essence, the Okinawans have found a way to beat the clock. How do they do it? In The Okinawa Program, Bradley J. Willcox, M.D., D. Craig Willcox, Ph.D., and Makoto Suzuki, M.D. reveal the islanders' age-defying secrets. Of course, there are really no surprises here: a low-fat diet, exercise, stress management, strong social and family ties, and spiritual connectedness--the same things experts have been recommending for years--all play key roles in keeping the Okinawans youthful. But in this fascinating read, which is peppered with inspiring anecdotes about these remarkable people, the authors provide concrete evidence that adopting these healthy habits pays off significantly in terms of tacking more productive years onto our lives. Based on the authors' 25-year Okinawa Centenarian Study, this extraordinarily well-written book demonstrates that genetics provide only so much protection against disease. Indeed, the authors often remind us that when younger Okinawans pick up Western habits, their rates of obesity, illness, and life expectancy start to match ours as well. Clearly, when it comes to longevity, healthy lifestyle habits will out. That said, the major message of The Okinawa Program is that we can easily adopt the life-lengthening strategies that have served the Okinawans so well for generations. To that end, the authors pack chapters with suggestions for following "The Way," from eating a low-fat, low-calorie diet packed with fiber and complex carbohydrates (cooking up the book's more than 80 recipes is a start) and learning tai chi to finding time to meditate and relax, developing one's spirituality, doing volunteer work, and building a solid network of friends and family. Rounding out the book, the authors pull their key recommendations into a comprehensive yet doable four-week plan that's meant to get you started. Following "The Way" isn't a free shot at immortality, but it certainly helps stack the deck in your favor. --Norine Dworkin
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| Customer Reviews: Read 60 more reviews...
Indispensable December 28, 2008
Anyone seeking a joyful life really should pick up this fine, thought-provoking book. Written by leaders in the field of health and wellness, this best seller offers a path to better health--physical, mental and spiritual--but without the strictures and dictates of the typical, modern fad diet. The authors gush with enthusiasm over their discoveries, and through their helpful approach and real-life stories, make what will be a radical change in lifestyle for many American readers seem not only doable, but also rewarding and fun. That's no mean achievement in a culture of obesity, soaring health care costs and frequent rush-rush, don't-bother-me-with-that attitudes.
At the same time, Suzuki, Wilcox and Wilcox are, at times, victims of their own enthusiasm; the reader is cautioned accordingly. The book presents suggested menus and repeatedly offers specific foods as elixirs, more or less, and once past Dr. Andrew Weil's perspicacious Foreword, some readers may take the effusive advice as gospel. It's not, of course, and anyone embarking on a new diet ought to do so only under qualified, professional supervision: allergies and complications associated with certain foods may arise.
I keep two copies of this book, one at my bedside and one at my desk, as a core reference. My health's terrific, I should add, and maybe yours will be, too, if you live the Okinawan way. A great companion to this book is George Mateljan's capacious The World's Healthiest Foods, Essential Guide for the Healthiest Way of Eating, but again, all such books are starting points, not destinations.
My Titles
Shadow Fields
Snooker Glen
Dasha
 Best book! January 15, 2008
This is such a good book. When I first got it I read much of it to my young children and they loved hearing about the Okinawan life and elders. My 10 year old son wanted us to move there!
I have bought more copies of this book than any other because I keep giving mine away. Now I just keep a stash to give.
This should become your textbook for living.
A Land of the Immortals, a Shangri-La December 16, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Old age in America is beset with misery. No matter how much money elderly people have, ill health inevitably attacks and then lingers endlessly, making their final years a living hell.
When the authors (Willcox, Willcox and Suzuki) undertook a twenty-five year study of the phenomenon of healthy longevity in Okinawa, they met their first centenurian, Nakajimasan. Upon approaching his small wooden cottage, they encountered a sprightly man of about seventy preparing to garden, who greeted them with a wave and winning smile. They asked this man where his father was, and to their amazement discovered that this energetic man was the centenarian, Nakajimasan, they sought. They conducted full medical testing and discovered that, after 100 years, there was nothing wrong with his body or mind. He was in perfect health.
After reading this opening, I was hooked.
And the rest of the book lived up to this promise. In meticulously researched chapters, the authors show how a diet emphasizing veggies, fruit, soy, grains, fish and legumes, healthy regular exercise, a relaxed, non-time-pressured yet confident, optimistic and assertive approach to life, social support, universal health insurance and an active spiritual life can lead to amazing health up to and surpassing age 100. The Okinawan centenarians (and those in their 80s and 90s) have astonishingly low rates of cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, dementia, diabetes and obesity. They do not require the extensive medical care elderly Americans need. Yet when the Okinawans immigrate elsewhere or just take on a more western lifestyle (as, unfortunately, the younger Okinawans have done), their life expectancies plummet and western diseases emerge.
Throughout the book, the authors give numerous ways Americans can adopt "the Okinawa way" and add joy and health to their final years (and all the years preceding these.)
In 2005 when I first read this book, I was obese, had unhealthy cholesterol and other blood test levels, looked like a rotund pear, and was hopelessly out of shape. Gradually over the next two years I gravitated toward the Okinawa program and a diet of legumes, soy, fruit, grains, veggies and less meat, dairy and processed foods. I did not follow their exact diet (which would require cooking three meals per day - yeah, right), but I incorporated the principles of the diet into my eating and exercised an hour per day five days a week, mixing weights, aerobics and stretches as these authors advised. I have gone from a tight size 18 to a size 6, now can jog the majority of an hour, and feel energized and light-years younger. This plan is pleasant and easy to follow, unlike my previous rigid diet attempts which required counting carbs, calories, points, fat grams, or whatever.
This is the best health book you will ever read. It will guide you toward the health of the older Okinawans, a place the ancients hauntingly described as "a land of the immortals, a Shangri-La."
An Escape from America's Toxic Lifestyle September 17, 2006
10 out of 14 found this review helpful
America isn't a very safe place to live.
I'm not talking about crime rates, but about death rates, or more specifically health expectancy rates, which is the length of time a person can expect to live in good health, living independently and productively with a sound mind and body.
The United States ranks 24th, dead last among all developed countries.
Why? What is so toxic about the American lifestyle?
Well, the old saying goes, if you want to spot a counterfeit, go study a genuine dollar bill.
Likewise, if you want to spot what's wrong with America, why not go study the healthiest people on Earth?
Well, that's what two brothers, one a physician and one an anthropologist, have been doing for the past decade in the islands of Okinawa, studying over 400 centenarians--people over 100 years old. And not decrepit, demented shells over 100 either-- people still living in their homes, gardening, walking to market daily, chatting with friends.
Why are they living so long? Why are their bodies on almost every biochemical measure 20 years younger or more than equivalent American bodies?
That's the subject of the book The Okinawa Program, and a fascinating read it is. The authors both try to describe the health and lifestyle of the Okinawan culture, try to explain what is healthy about it, and then how to incorporate it into our lifestyle.
The distinctives that the authors bring out chapter by chapter are a healthy primarily vegetarian diet, regular exercise, a low-pressure lifestyle, use of meditation and other forms of stress-reduction, a close supportive social network, and their "spirituality" which is mostly positive and optimistic in nature.
The book itself is well-written and documented as far as this genre goes. It's only downfall (also common to the genre) is tunnel-vision. The authors' enthusiasm for all things Okinawan rarely points out anything negative at all about the culture, to the point that you wonder how objective they really are. Beyond that, they often downplay the very tenuous nature of drawing conclusions about looking backwards and trying to figure out why things are a certain way-- you can use common sense and a little science to make a good guess that eating foods high in flavinoids may extend life, but limited science plus common sense has led us down the wrong path many a time before.
Another major point to be made is that these non-Christian authors cannot perceive the difference between mere religion (which they apparently believe is generically good for both its placebo like effect on the human body and possibly tapping into some generic higher power) vs. a genuine relationship with the genuine God.
Of course, this draws a rather brutal line in the sand for those of us who do name the name of Christ. If our lives have truly been touched by the living God, then why are we dying by the droves in our gluttony and physical laziness and frantically paced American lifestyles, while people who do not know the true God over the ocean are living lives which I suspect more closely model what Christ would have us live? Food for thought, and a worthwhile book to read and ponder.
Tay Gay August 10, 2006
0 out of 7 found this review helpful
Wonderful Insight to Change Lifestyle and Live a Healthy Long Fulfilling Life.
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