
The world’s nations face rapid aging, and in Japan’s unprecedented super aging society, 30% of the population will be 65 or older by 2030, rising to 40% by 2055. The world’s eyes are upon Japan to see how we handle this situation. Publicly-financed medical care costs exceed 33 trillion yen, and are climbing by one trillion yen annually. I believe that this severe crisis presents itself, on the contrary, as an opportunity to share our accumulated know-how with the global nations in similar straits. The average human lifespan in Japan is 80.9 years, 74.5 of them lived in reasonable health, leaving 6.4 years spent in a bedridden or similar state. Approximately 66% of lifelong medical expenses occur after age 60, with about half remaining after age 70, and some 20% occurring during the final year of life. However, recent research suggests that medical care costs do not expand with a longer life; in fact, healthy longevity sees across-the-board decreases in medical care costs. In other words, achieving healthy longevity not only results in a better QOL (quality of life) for the vital individual and family, but also positively impacts rising publicly-financed medical care costs.