Japanese pioneer of preventive medicine and healthy lifestyle dies at the age of 105
A Japanese doctor and pioneer of preventive medicine died yesterday at the age of 105.
Shigeaki Hinohara, who was still seeing patients until months before his death, was born in 1911 – a year before the Titanic sank.
For decades, Hinohara was the director and public face of St Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo, where he started working as early as 1945.
There he treated victims of the Second World War firebombing in Tokyo, which left vast areas of the Japanese capital in ruins.
“From the start of this year his health wasn’t so good, but until then he’d drop into the hospital every so often to conduct exams and talk with patients,” a hospital spokeswoman said.
An early advocate of healthier living to hold off age-related illness, Hinohara in 1954 introduced Japan’s “human drydock” system of comprehensive annual physical examinations.
It was part of the preventive medical system that was said to contribute to the longevity of Japanese people.
The author of 75 books, including a bestseller that he wrote at 101, Hinohara was also a frequent guest on Japanese television, where he unveiled a lifestyle that included orange juice with olive oil for breakfast.
He said energy came from feeling good, not fixed rules of life.
“We all remember how as children, when we were having fun, we often forgot to eat or sleep,” Hinohara once said.
“I believe we can keep that attitude as adults. It’s best not to tire the body with too many rules such as lunchtime and bedtime.”