Odd news from Japan

 These headlines caught my eye:

OK, let's take number 2 first:

The study covered prefectural residents aged 40 or older who underwent annual health checkups in the seven cities of Kaminoyama, Yamagata, Higashine, Sakata, Tendo, Yonezawa and Sagae. The subjects were studied for a maximum of nine years from 2009, with a median follow-up period of 7.1 years.

The subjects were asked if they had any interest in the opposite sex. They were also questioned about their medical history, use of medication, how often they laughed and mental stress levels.

The researchers studied the correlation between those factors and the risk of death.

They found that 8.3 percent of the roughly 7,700 male subjects and 16.1 percent of the 11,400 or so female subjects were not interested in the opposite sex. The team said 503 test subjects, 356 men and 147 women, died during the follow-up study.

Analysis of the data showed that 9.6 percent of the men who said they had no interest in the opposite sex died during the nine years. The death rate among men who said they were still sexually interested in women was 5.6 percent.

The researchers concluded the difference shows a significantly higher risk of death, even when discounting other factors, such as age and chronic illnesses.

The data on women indicated no correlation between their sexual interest and risk of death, the team members added.

I'm assuming that a significant part of this could be that the men with erectile dysfunction, which can indicate poor general health, are the ones with low interest in the opposite sex?   Or does the discounting of "chronic illness" account for that?   

Also, I continue to be very surprised that this story from last year did not really gain any widespread publicity:

And at the end of 2021, a group at Cleveland Clinic analyzed the insurance claims for more than 7 million Americans and found that people on Viagra were almost 70% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than people who were not on the drug.

(It was already know to be pretty good for the heart, too.)

I would recommend that the Japanese get into prescribing it for "men with no interest in women".  :)

And as for the first story:  it sounds like a very weird true crime story -

SAPPORO--Police on July 24 arrested a woman and her father in connection with the discovery of a headless body in a hotel here three weeks ago.

Runa Tamura, 29, and her father Osamu, a 59-year-old doctor, were held on suspicion of damaging, abandoning and illegally possessing a body, police said.

Police believe the victim, a 62-year-old Hokkaido resident, was known to Runa, who lives in Sapporo.

The daughter and father pair are suspected of decapitating the man in a hotel in Sapporo’s Susukino entertainment district late on July 1 or early on July 2, the police said.

They are also suspected of taking the victim's head to another location. It remains missing.

The man died from a stab wound in the body. His head was apparently cut off after death, investigative sources said.

The victim’s body was naked. No clothing or belongings such as a cellphone or wallet were found.

There were no signs of a struggle in the hotel room, and the victim had no defense wounds, the sources said.

 What on earth was going on??