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 on 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. Luke’s International University and honorary president of St. Luke’s International Hospital, both in Tokyo. The cause was respiratory failure, the hospital said.
“He is one of the persons who built the foundations of Japanese medicine,” said Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary.
Dr. Hinohara was born in 1911, when the average Japanese person was unlikely to survive past 40. He never wasted a day defying the odds.
He 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 cult’s 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.
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 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.
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 argued that palliative care should be a priority for the terminally ill.
He imposed few inviolable health rules, though 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. Don’t underestimate the beneficial effects of music and the company of animals; both can be therapeutic. Don’t 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 three and a half ounces of lean meat twice a week.)
Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara was born on Oct. 4, 1911, in Yamaguchi Prefecture, in western Japan. He decided to study medicine after his mother’s life was saved by the family’s doctor. His father was a Methodist pastor who had studied at Duke University.
“Have big visions and put such visions into reality with courage,” his father had advised him, Dr. Hinohara told the Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network. “The visions may not be achieved while you are alive, but do not forget to be adventurous. Then you will be victorious.”
Dr. Hinohara graduated in 1937 from Kyoto Imperial University’s College of Medicine. (He later studied for a year at Emory University in Atlanta.) He began practicing at St. Luke’s International Hospital in 1941. (It was founded by a missionary at the beginning of the 20th century.) He became its director in 1992.
In 1970, he was flying to a medical conference in Japan when his plane was hijacked by radical Communists armed with swords and pipe bombs. He was among 130 hostages who spent four days trapped in 100-degree heat until the hijackers released their captives and flew to North Korea, where they were offered asylum.
“I believe that I was privileged to live,” he later said, “so my life must be dedicated to other people.”
After spending his first six decades supporting his family, Dr. Hinohara devoted the remainder of his life largely to volunteer work.
In 2000, he conceived a musical version of Leo Buscaglia’s book “The Fall of Freddie the Leaf,” which was performed in Japan and played Off Off Broadway in New York. He wrote scores of books in Japanese, including “Living Long, Living Good” (2001), which sold more than a million copies.
Until the last few months, he would work up to 18 hours a day. Using a cane, he would exercise by taking 2,000 or more steps a day. In March, unable to eat, he was hospitalized. But he refused a feeding tube and was discharged. Months later, he died at home.
Dr. Hinohara said his outlook toward life had been inspired by Robert Browning’s poem “Abt Vogler,” especially these lines:
There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.
What the poem evoked for him, he once explained, was a circle drawn so big that only the arch was visible. Seeing it in full, he said, could never be realized in his lifetime.
A version of
this article appears in print on July 26, 2017, on Page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara, Who Taught Japan How to Live Long, Dies at 105.
***
Until the turn of the century, Dr. Hinohara was known mainly in the medical profession. Then,
at age 90, he published “How to Live Well,” a collection of commentaries on life with his gentle visage on the cover, wearing a doctor’s coat and holding a stethoscope. The book said people over 75 shouldn’t be shunted to society’s margins, and he exhorted his fellow elderly citizens to consider themselves “on the job” of living even if they were retired from paid work.
“Animals can’t change how they crawl or run, but humans can change how they live. This is because humans alone know from the beginning that life has an ending,” wrote Dr. Hinohara, “Genius without limit sleeps within everyone and awaits its moment of flowering.”
In a country where many companies still force their employees to retire at 60, the message resonated widely. Even after passing 100, Dr. Hinohara was flying around the country giving speeches and writing a regular column in the Asahi newspaper.
He said the elderly shouldn’t worry too much about their diet—he himself was accustomed to making a lunch out of milk and cookies—and told the story of an artist who stopped painting after being warned to lay off sweets because of high blood sugar. Dr. Hinohara relaxed the restrictions, and the artist lived until 105.
“Especially when [doctors] are young, they give strict guidance to patients according to what the textbooks say. But when you tell elderly people, ‘Stop this, reduce that,’ and severely restrict their lives, you can practically see their spirit wither away,” he wrote in “How to Live Well.”
*** [8/28/20]
Dr.
Shigeaki Hinohara
had an extraordinary life for many reasons. For starters, the Japanese
physician and longevity expert lived until the age of 105.
When he
died, in 2017, Hinohara was chairman emeritus of St. Luke’s
International University and honorary president of St. Luke’s
International Hospital, both in Tokyo.
Perhaps best known for his book,
“Living Long, Living Good,” Hinohara
offered
advice that helped make Japan the world leader in longevity.
Some were fairly intuitive points, while others were less obvious:
1. Don’t retire. But if you must, do so a lot later than age 65.
The
average retirement age, at least in the U.S., has always hovered at around 65. And, in recent years, many have embraced the
FIRE movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early).
But Hinohara
viewed things differently. “There is no need to ever retire, but if one
must, it should be a lot later than 65,” he said in a
2009 interview with The Japan Times.
“The current retirement age was set at 65 half a century ago, when the
average life expectancy in Japan was 68 years and only 125 Japanese were
over 100 years old.”
Today, he explained, people are living a lot longer. The
life expectancy for U.S. in 2020, for example, is 78.93 years, a 0.08% increase from 2019. Therefore, we should be retiring much later in life, too.
Hinohara certainly practiced what he preached: Until a few months before his death,
he continued to treat patients, kept an appointment book with space for five more years, and worked up to 18 hours a day.
2. Take the stairs (and keep your weight in check).
Hinohara emphasized the importance of
regular exercise. “I take two stairs at a time, to get my muscles moving,” he said.
Additionally, Hinohara
carried his own packages and luggage, and gave 150 lectures a year, usually speaking for 60 to 90 minutes — all done standing, he said, “to stay strong.”
He
also pointed out that people who live an extremely long life have a
commonality: They aren’t overweight. Indeed, obesity is widely
considered one of the most
significant risk factors for increased morbidity and mortality.
Hinohara’s
diet was spartan: “For breakfast, I drink coffee, a glass of milk and
some orange juice with a tablespoon of olive oil in it.” (
Studies have found that olive oil offers numerous health benefits, such as keeping your
arteries clean and
lowering heart disease risk.)
“Lunch
is milk and a few cookies, or nothing when I am too busy to eat,” he
continued. “I never get hungry because I focus on my work. Dinner is
veggies, a bit of fish and rice, and, twice a week, 100 grams of lean
meat.”
3. Find a purpose that keeps you busy.
According
to Hinohara, not having a full schedule is a surefire way to age faster
and die sooner. However, it’s important to stay busy not just for the
sake of
staying busy, but to be active in activities that help serve a purpose.
(The logic is that one can be busy, yet still feel empty and idle on
the inside.)
Hinohara found his purpose early on, after his mother’s life was saved by the family’s doctor.
Janit Kawaguchi, a journalist who considered Hinohara a mentor,
said,
“He believed that life is all about contribution, so he had this
incredible drive to help people, to wake up early in the morning and do
something wonderful for other people. This is what was driving him and
what kept him living.”
“It’s wonderful to live long,” Hinohara
said in the interview. “Until one is 60 years old, it is easy to work
for one’s family and to achieve one’s goals. But in our later years, we
should strive to contribute to society. Since the age of 65, I have
worked as a volunteer. I still put in 18 hours seven days a week and
love every minute of it.”
4. Rules are stressful; try to relax them.
While
he clearly promoted exercise and nutrition as pathways to a longer and
healthier life, Hinohara simultaneously maintained that we need not be
obsessed with restricting our behaviors.
“We all remember how, as children, when we were having fun, we would forget 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.”
Richard Overton, one of America’s oldest-surviving World War II veterans, would have most likely agreed. Right up until his
death at age 112, the supercentenarian
smoked cigars, drank whisky and ate fried food and ice cream on a daily basis.
Hinohara might not have approved of Overton’s diet, but, to be fair, Overton did
credit his longevity to maintaining a “stress-free life and keeping busy.”
5. Remember that doctors can’t cure everything.
Hinohara
cautioned against always taking the doctor’s advice. When a test or
surgery is recommended, he advised, “ask whether the doctor would
suggest that his or her spouse or children go through such a procedure.”
Hinohara
insisted that science alone can’t help people. It “lumps us all
together, but illness is individual. Each person is unique, and diseases
are connected to their hearts,” he said. “To know the illness and help
people, we need liberal and visual arts, not just medical ones.”
In
fact, Hinohara made sure that St. Luke’s catered to the basic need of
patients: “To have fun.” The hospital provided music, animal therapy and
art classes.
“Pain is mysterious, and having fun is the best way
to forget it,” he said. “If a child has a toothache, and you start
playing a game together, he or she immediately forgets the pain.”
6. Find inspiration, joy and peace in art.
According to
The New York Times,
toward the end of his life, Hinohara was unable to eat, but refused a
feeding tube. He was discharged and died months later at home.
Instead
of trying to fight death, Hinohara found peace in where he was through
art. In fact, he credited his contentment and outlook toward life to a
poem by Robert Browning, called
“Abt Vogler” — especially these lines:
There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.
“My
father used to read it to me,” Hinohara recalled. “It encourages us to
make big art, not small scribbles. It says to try to draw a circle so
huge that there is no way we can finish it while we are alive. All we
see is an arch; the rest is beyond our vision, but it is there in the
distance.”
Tom Popomaronis is a leadership researcher and vice president of innovation at Massive Alliance. His
work has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., and The
Washington Post. In 2014, Tom was named one of the “40 Under 40” by the
Baltimore Business Journal. Follow him on LinkedIn.
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