Dr Shigeaki Hinohara wasn’t particularly interested in slowing down. At an age when most people would have long since cleared their desk, the Japanese doctor was still seeing patients, writing and teaching. He took the stairs instead of the lift, made plans years ahead and when he eventually died in 2017, he was 105.
Almost a decade later, Hinohara has become an unlikely social media star. A post circulating online credits him with nine warnings about the habits that make us age faster. It’s compelling stuff, but it’s also not entirely true.
Hinohara wasn’t 108, as the post claims, and there is no reliable evidence he devised its list of “nine invisible threats”. Some of its more dramatic claims about the body deciding its “mission is over”, “silent cellular dehydration” and emotions altering our biology owe more to the internet than medicine.
The man behind the meme, however, is worth knowing about.
Hinohara was one of Japan’s pioneers of preventive medicine. He joined Tokyo’s St Luke’s International Hospital in 1941 and continued practising after his 100th birthday. At 90, he published a book on living well that became a bestseller.
When The Japan Times interviewed him at 97, Hinohara was still a physician and educator and had published around 150 books since turning 75.
Look beyond the viral exaggerations and there are lessons in the way he lived that feel remarkably relevant today.
Not a formula for reaching 105. No such formula exists.
But perhaps a useful way to think about the years ahead.
Hinohara’s attitude to retirement was unconventional.
He believed people shouldn’t automatically withdraw from working life simply because they had reached a particular birthday. He certainly didn’t.
That doesn’t mean working until 100 should suddenly become the goal.
There is a much broader point here.
Leaving paid employment doesn’t mean leaving behind the things that make you feel useful. Work can be replaced by grandchildren, volunteering, mentoring, community involvement, travel, a garden, creative projects or finally having time for the thing you’ve been promising yourself you’d do for 20 years.
Hinohara kept an appointment diary that reportedly stretched years into the future.
He expected there to be a future, and kept putting things in it.
One of the more dramatic claims in the viral post is that isolation eventually tells the brain that “its mission is over”.
That’s not a medical explanation of ageing.
Loneliness, though, is very real.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare figures show 15 per cent of Australians aged 65 and over experienced loneliness in 2024. Interestingly, that figure has fallen from 20 per cent in 2001. (AIHW)
There is growing interest in what those relationships might mean for our brains as well as our happiness.
Australian research involving almost 10,000 people aged 70 and over has examined associations between social activity and later dementia risk, while the AIHW identifies social isolation and loneliness among the potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia.
Nobody needs a packed social calendar.
But a coffee, a phone call, the local club, neighbours, old friends and new ones may matter more than we sometimes give them credit for.
Hinohara had a wonderfully uncomplicated approach to movement. Take the stairs.
It’s difficult to imagine advice less suited to the modern wellness industry; no subscription, no gadget and no elaborate routine required.
It also happens to fit rather neatly with Australia’s newly updated movement guidelines for people aged 65 and over.
They recommend 30 minutes or more of moderate-to-vigorous activity on most days, muscle-strengthening activities at least twice a week and activities that work on mobility, balance and coordination at least three days a week. Long stretches of sitting should also be broken up.
The guidelines even nominate walking up and down stairs as an activity that can contribute to both moderate exercise and functional movement.
Hinohara was onto something.
You don’t need to run marathons at 75.
But our bodies still expect to be used.
Hinohara was 75 when many people might have considered their most productive years behind them.
He then published roughly 150 books and that statistic alone deserves a moment.
The viral post describes the alternative as “intellectual suicide”, which we’ll happily leave to social media.
The Australian evidence is considerably less melodramatic. The AIHW says mentally stimulating activities that challenge the brain throughout life — including education, employment and hobbies — can help build what researchers call “cognitive reserve”.
That doesn’t mean doing Sudoku every morning will prevent dementia.
It does mean there is no good reason to stop learning because the number on your birthday cake has changed.
Learn Italian. Try pottery. Pick up a guitar. Read something difficult. Work out what half the buttons on your phone actually do.
Hinohara’s example wasn’t about “brain training”, it was curiosity.
Muscle doesn’t attract the same attention as wrinkles or grey hair, but it becomes increasingly important as the years pass.
Strength helps us get out of a chair, carry the shopping, climb stairs, maintain balance and continue doing things for ourselves. That’s why Australia’s latest guidelines specifically include muscle-strengthening work for older adults, along with balance, mobility and coordination.
The encouraging part is that movement doesn’t have to be extreme to count.
A recent Australian study following more than 11,000 older adults found those who rarely or never engaged in physical activity had higher rates of dementia and cognitive decline than people doing light physical activity. The researchers did not find evidence that ever-higher levels produced ever-lower risk.
In other words, doing something matters.
Hinohara preferred stairs to lifts. Your version might be walking, gardening, resistance bands, weights or exercises prescribed by a physio.
The viral post becomes particularly creative here, claiming artificial light “blocks vitamin D” and interferes with the endocrine system.
We’ll leave that one behind.
There is a simpler reason to get outdoors: it gets us out of the chair.
A walk can give you movement, daylight, a change of scenery and sometimes a conversation with another human being all at once.
Australia’s updated guidelines also put sleep into the same 24-hour picture as movement, recommending seven to eight hours of good-quality sleep for older adults with reasonably consistent sleep and waking times.
You don’t need to “recalibrate” your body.
Sometimes going for a walk is just going for a walk and that’s enough.
There is a tendency in longevity content to turn ordinary human emotions into diseases.
The viral post does it with resentment, claiming difficult relationships alter gut bacteria and trigger inflammation.
Human beings are more complicated than that. What we do know is that staying socially engaged appears to matter.
One recent Australian study followed more than 12,000 people aged 70 and over for 11 years. Researchers found frequent participation in various social and cognitive activities was associated with slower progression of frailty and a modestly lower risk of becoming frail. As an observational study, it can’t prove those activities caused the difference, but the association is intriguing.
The lesson needn’t be to purge everyone who irritates you.
Perhaps it’s simply to put more time into the people who make your life better.
This is one area where the viral post crosses a line.
It warns about “chemical quick fixes” and suggests medicines merely suppress symptoms while causing toxicity.
For an older audience, that’s not advice we would repeat.
Medicines can be essential and sometimes life-saving. Nobody should stop a prescribed medicine on the strength of a social media post.
There is, however, a legitimate conversation to be had about the number of medicines some older people take and whether they are all still appropriate.
Ageing can change the way our bodies respond to medicines, while taking multiple medications can increase the possibility of side effects and interactions. Regular reviews with a GP or pharmacist can help identify medicines that are no longer required or doses that may need adjusting.
The distinction is important.
Reviewing medication with a health professional is good medicine, but being frightened of medication isn’t.
Perhaps the nicest thing Hinohara said about longevity had very little to do with medicine.
At 97, he reflected on the way children can become so absorbed in having fun that they forget about eating or sleeping. His point was not that adults should abandon meals and bedtime.
It was that enjoyment gives us energy.
There is something brilliantly unscientific about that coming from a doctor who spent more than six decades practising medicine. Hinohara kept working, teaching, he wrote books, planned ahead and he remained interested.
He apparently wasn’t spending his 90s obsessing over being 90, and that’s the part of his story the viral post didn’t need to embellish.
Hinohara’s longevity makes for a wonderful story, but it doesn’t make his lifestyle a prescription.
Ageing is complicated, genetics matter, disease matters, our circumstances matter and access to healthcare matters. Luck matters.
A person can exercise, stay socially connected and remain endlessly curious and still become seriously ill.
What we can do is give ourselves the best chance of remaining capable, connected and engaged for as long as possible.
Move your body. Protect your strength. Keep people around you. Give your brain something to wrestle with. Find something that makes tomorrow worth looking forward to.
Hinohara never discovered a switch that stopped ageing.
He just kept participating in life.
For 105 years.
Health note: This article provides general information only and isn’t a substitute for individual medical advice. Speak with your GP or another qualified health professional before making significant changes to exercise, diet or medication.
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