Longevity, Hot Topic in China

The old Chinese saying that people rarely live beyond 70 is becoming outdated as an increased number of Chinese are now living longer and healthier lives.

Switch on the computer and search the web for areas famous for long-lived people, and the names of a dozen or so geographically remote or backward places, unheard of by most Chinese, will flash onto the screen.

With dramatic pictures and enticing introductions about their local specialties, these ancient and unique counties or villages are telling the world the secrets of their vitality and longevity.

The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has launched a web promotion on its rare tonic wine brewed from unique local medicinal crops.

The Bama county of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China set up a Longevity tour program which has attracted a number of people to their villages, where they can sample the local food and discuss the secrets of their longevity with centenarians. centenarians.

Data from the nation's fourth census in 1990 revealed that there were 69 centenarians in the Bama county, 30.8 per 100,000 population.

Among this number, 34 people were Yao. There were also 226 aged between 90 and 99 years and 1,724 between 80 and 89. Between 1960 and 2001, the proportion of centenarians in the Bama county has increased from 18.6 per 100,000 to the current 31 per 100,000.

In 1991, the county was ranked among the world's top five countries renown for their long-lived people.

Now more villages or towns in China are as well known as Bama. In Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province, a street originally called Taipingmen has been renamed Longevity street because of the growing number of long-lived people there.

Statistics show that the present Chinese life expectancy is 71 years, much longer than the world's average of 65 years. The annual growth rate of the country's senior citizens over 80 years old is 5 percent of the total population and their number exceeds 11 million.

For Chinese of ethnic nationalities, life expectancy has grown from the average of 30 years in 1949 when the nation was founded, to 60 years, while the early death rate and infant mortality are both rapidly reduced.

Take Tibetans for example. Deaths of pregnant women have dropped from 50 per thousand in 1959 to 7 per thousand in 1998, while infant deaths have plummeted from 430 per thousand to 36.77 per thousand. The expected life span in the Tibetan Autonomous Region has been extended from 36 years in 1949 to a current 65 years.

There are many elements which contribute to people's longevity, including genetic make-up, geographical and climatic environment, living conditions, dietary habits and social background.

Health experts studying the longevity phenomenon in Bama county say that the rise in the number of centenarians in China's remote or ethnic regions is related to the rising living standard and improving medical and health care facilities .

Huang Tianci, a centenarian in Bama, says " The vitality of our old people is expanding because we are living in the flourishing era."






People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/