It's Not The Mochi

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: Accidental deaths higher in Japan
Although Japan prides itself on being one of the safest countries in the world, new statistics show that the accidental death rates for infants and elderly people are higher than in most of 13 other developed countries, researchers say...Cause of death among age groups in Japan included falls and drowning for those aged under 1, falls and traffic accidents for children aged 1 to 4, and drowning, fires and traffic accidents among senior citizens. Death rates by drowning and fires were high even when data for all age groups were pooled...While more precise research is needed to discover the cause of the higher death rates in Japan, researchers say one reason for the higher national rate of drownings may be due to a nationwide tendency to leave home baths filled when not in use...more...

[etto_neh]

Death rates by drowning .... were high even when data for all age groups were pooled..

POOLED?! Er... well, I'd certainly say they were.....

[Blah Pete]

POOLED?! Er... well, I'd certainly say they were.....

and drowning, fires and traffic accidents among senior citizens.

Anyone ever try to buy a basic smoke detector in Japan?
I was at Fry's (supermarket size computer/electronic store) and they were selling them on special for about $2.

How often do you see on the news one of those cheap-ass houses burned to the ground and it is always 70+ or little kids that die. A inexpensive smoke detector wouls have saved so many lives.
Probably the main cause of fires is kerosene heaters... Another topic to bitch about. [/i]

[Mulboyne]

Kyodo via Yahoo: Japanese die of heatstroke caused by hot baths
It is well known that the Japanese love to unwind in hot baths, but what perhaps is not so well known that is about 14,000 people die annually from taking them. The death toll tends to rise in the winter, and the elderly make up many of the victims. A research group led by Shingo Hori, a Keio University assistant professor specialized in emergency medicine, has confirmed that people can suffer heatstroke from taking a hot bath.
...In the group's experiments, one test subject initially soaked in a bath as hot as 44 C. It was confirmed that his body temperature soared to 40 C in 10 minutes. Then, mice under anesthesia were placed in waters in 40-45 C for the group to observe changes in their body temperature and breathing. A mouse placed in 40-C water came to after a while. But other mice in water hotter than 41 C stopped breathing in 30 minutes to 2 hours without coming to.

[canman]

Yesterday a 49 year old lady expired at a small cento a few blocks from my house. The newspaper didn't give the cause of death, my wife and I thought heart attack, especially after jumping into that pool of cold water after sitting ina hot tub for ten minutes. But maybe it was heat stroke. I'll tell you I stayed in a dry sauna a few minutes too many and it made me sick for the rest of the day, headache and fever, which I think are mild symptoms of heat stroke.