Daily check-ins may help people live longer, one longevity founder argues
The guest says some supposed 100-year-olds had died while families kept collecting the pension, but lasting peer networks may still matter.
This Week in Startups · Why this longevity startup raised in Japan, not Silicon Valley | TWiST Tokyo | E2315Blue zones, the handful of places including Okinawa in Japan and villages in Italy said to hold unusually many people over 100, got less miraculous on closer inspection.
That account comes from Bilal Karoui, the French founder of AK Labs, a startup that studies chemical tags on DNA that change with aging. He was describing a paper behind the controversy that observed that most blue zones were the poorest areas of their countries.
When researchers visited in person, he said, they found cases where a supposed 100-year-old had died and the family was still collecting the pension.
Karoui said Okinawa and most of the other zones still show some links between sociability and longevity. What follows is his theory for why that connection might exist, offered when he was asked how social life could affect aging.
His first explanation starts with a knock on the door. If someone checks on you every day to see that you are doing well, you have a person looking out for you, and you tend to keep healthier habits.
The second part is mental. Having a regular routine with people you appreciate, and feeling supported, matters for staying in good health. Karoui said he has known people with strong supportive networks for years who declined extremely fast when that network disappeared.
Diet can help, too, especially the healthy Mediterranean diet in Italy, but his main point was social. He pointed to Okinawa, where he said solidarity networks last a very long time and people remain peers for decades.
Questions people ask
Does this mean Okinawans do not actually live longer?
No. Researchers still find that Okinawans live longer on average than many other populations, and Japan as a whole has one of the highest life expectancies in the world. The controversy is about whether a few specific villages had as many verified centenarians as claimed, not about the broader longevity pattern.
What is the Mediterranean diet, and why is it considered healthy?
It means eating plenty of vegetables, beans, whole grains, olive oil, and fish, with less red meat and processed food. Studies link it to lower rates of heart disease and stroke, which are among the largest causes of death, so it can add healthy years even without any longevity trick.
How could friendship physically affect how long someone lives?
Loneliness is linked to higher stress, poorer sleep, less physical activity, and higher risk of heart disease, depression, and early death. Regular contact seems to buffer stress and encourage healthier routines, from eating and walking to seeing a doctor earlier.