Photo By Spc. Leigh Campbell | Vegetables that volunteers of Chample Study 3 will be eating were displayed at the...... read more read more
Subscribe
By Lance Cpl. David Rogers
III Marine Expeditionary Force PAO
CAMP FOSTER, OKINAWA, Japan -- With help from about 150 Americans living on Okinawa, researchers from two local universities are studying the potentially life-extending effects of a traditional Okinawan diet on Westerners.
Dr. Hidemi Todoriki, a professor at the University of the Ryukyus, is the principal researcher of the Chample Study 3, the third in a series of studies on the effects of the Okinawan diet. Todoriki and four other researchers are attempting to determine whether Okinawan vegetables can contribute to a person's longevity.
"Typical Okinawan diet and dietary habits are said to be a major contributing factor to the longevity of Okinawans," said Dr. Craig Willcox, an assistant professor with the Okinawa Prefectural University-College of Nursing and co-principal researcher of the study.
Researchers asked for healthy American volunteers between the ages of 40 and 69 to begin the Okinawan vegetable diet to determine whether the diet will cause changes to vital signs that can contribute to a longer, healthier life, he said.
Test subjects gathered at Camp Foster's Community Center Jan. 19 to get the information and resources needed to participate in the 10-week study, which began the same day.
Staci Rosen, the wellness director for Marine Corps Community Services, has been serving as liaison between the researchers and the American community. MCCS put out advertisements in publications, but Rosen said most information about the project was spread by word of mouth and e-mail.
All the volunteers were split into two groups, and each group was given its own schedule of meals and vegetable juices they were to consume.
Volunteers will eat a Western diet for the first two weeks. Group A will then begin eating the Okinawan diet, while group B continues the Western diet. The groups will switch diets after four weeks and continue that way for the remaining four weeks.
The schedule is intended to allow researchers to see how group A's eating habits and health are affected after they are no longer restricted to the Okinawan diet. The researchers may also track group B's health on the Western diet to see how their health changes once they are put on the Okinawan diet.
Bento, single-portion takeout meals common in Japanese cuisine, will be provided as the primary diet of test subjects. They will receive vegetables such as goya, green papaya, handama and sakuna. A four-day supply of lunch and dinner bento will be delivered once a week to pick-up points on each base.
Subjects can eat breakfast at their own discretion. Subjects on the Okinawan diet have "ad-lib days" Friday through Sunday, which allow them to eat whatever they want. However, subjects are encouraged to maintain the Eastern diet on ad-lib days as well, and they must drink Goya juice on those days, Willcox said.
Subjects will record their own blood pressure readings daily with a device provided by the researchers. Participants will also have their blood and urine tested three times throughout the study, he said.
Results from Chample Study 1, which studied women ages 18 to 36, were recently published in a medical journal about hypertension. Volunteers in the study stuck to the same diet plan as Chample Study 3, and the results showed signs that the subjects' chances of getting hypertension, which can lead to stroke, heart attack and heart failure, were reduced.
Chample Study 1 also showed that young Okinawan women are not eating the same amount of vegetables as their elders, according to Willcox. Willcox and his colleagues fear that the traditional Okinawan diet may get lost over time.
"We're trying to bring the Okinawan diet to a wider audience," he said.
Chample Study 2 was a related study of married couples between ages 45 and 65. The researchers are still analyzing the data from that study.
All data from Chample Study 3 will be compiled and analyzed to be published in a medical journal. Willcox doesn't expect the results of Chample Study 2 to be published until sometime next year, but preliminary results should be released in June.
| Date Taken: | 01.29.2002 |
| Date Posted: | 01.29.2007 09:32 |
| Story ID: | 8968 |
| Location: | CAMP FOSTER, JP |
| Web Views: | 285 |
| Downloads: | 86 |
This work, Researchers study effects of Okinawan diet on Americans, by LCpl Bradley Rogers, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
