How Asia is changing the meaning of longevity

Launched in July 2023, Healthier SG is Singapore’s national effort to shift healthcare upstream—from treating illness after it develops to preventing disease, detecting problems earlier and managing chronic conditions more consistently.

Under this government initiative, eligible Singapore citizens and permanent residents aged 40 and above can choose a participating general practitioner or polyclinic as their regular family doctor. Together, they develop a personalised health plan covering recommended screenings, vaccinations, chronic-disease care and lifestyle goals. Additional support is available through community programmes and the country’s HealthHub and Healthy 365 digital platforms.

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Early participation has been substantial. As of May 2026, the Ministry of Health cited more than 1.4 million residents, or 59 per cent of the eligible population, have enrolled. Eighty-three per cent have completed their first health-plan consultation, while 66 per cent of those due for an annual check-in in 2025 completed one. More than 1,100 GP clinics and polyclinics have participated.

These figures do not yet establish whether Healthier SG will reduce disease or extend healthy life expectancy over the long term. They do, however, show that Singapore has succeeded in bringing a large share of its population into an organised system of preventive care.

Over the same period, several national health indicators moved in the right direction. The 2024 National Population Health Survey (NPHS) found that sufficient physical activity rose from 78.5 per cent in 2023 to 84.7 per cent in 2024. Participation in chronic-disease screening increased from 62.6 to 66.4 per cent, while influenza vaccination rose from 21.7 to 28.2 per cent. Among residents aged 65 to 74, pneumococcal vaccination increased from 35 to 49.7 per cent. Daily smoking fell to an all-time low of 8.4 per cent.

There is still work to do. Adult obesity increased from 10.5 per cent between 2019 to 2020 to 12.7 per cent between 2023 and 2024, while hypertension and high cholesterol remained common in the latter survey period. Healthier SG has not solved those problems—not that a primary-care initiative could do so alone.

Its achievement so far is more foundational; it has created a national structure through which prevention, continuity of care and healthier habits can be pursued over time.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is also having a modern moment outside the clinic. Acupuncture, gua sha, cupping and herbal ideas now circulate through wellness and beauty culture, where they are often reframed as rituals for circulation, recovery, facial sculpting or skin maintenance. The country is drawing from older concepts of balance and prevention while also investing in some of the newest ways to measure and support ageing.

One fast-moving area is biological-age research. In 2025, the Ageing Biomarker Consortium launched the X-Age Project, a large effort to develop ageing clocks and biomarker systems tailored to Chinese populations. Its stated goal is to identify robust biomarkers and construct composite clocks that capture biological age across diverse Chinese cohorts, using standardised sample collection and multimodal data. In plain terms, it is an attempt to measure not just how long someone has lived, but how their body is ageing at physiological and molecular levels.

Also read: In Conversation: Master Ruth Lee and Dr Zara Chan on addressing women’s health issues through a combination of TCM and Western medicine

That research sits within a much larger demographic challenge. China has one of the world’s fastest-growing ageing populations. WHO projects that people over 60 will make up 28 per cent of the country’s population by 2040. Because of this looming reality, the country’s policy response now includes smart eldercare, community-based services, a unified national elderly-care information platform and technologies designed to help older people remain safer and better supported.

Robotics is also part of that push. In January 2025, the official state news agency Xinhua reported that China would promote humanoid robots, brain-computer interfaces and artificial intelligence for elderly care under new national guidelines, alongside intelligent home systems, safety-risk monitoring and a unified national elderly-care information platform. The ambition is national in scale: to use technology not simply as a consumer gadget, but as part of the infrastructure around ageing. Most applications remain in pilot or early deployment stages.

Malaysia has developed one of Asia’s most visible healthcare-travel sectors. In 2025, the country reportedly welcomed 1.84 million healthcare travellers, according to early figures from the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council, generating approximately RM3.34 billion (US$821.02 million) in direct healthcare revenue. The sector is supported by private hospitals, preventive screening, specialist care, international patient services and government-backed promotion.

Malaysia’s strength, beyond healthcare and pricing, is cultural fluency: multilingual care, hospitality, regional proximity, family support and Muslim-friendly healthcare for regional patients. The country has developed formal recognition frameworks covering medical facilities, spas and wellness providers; depending on the individual provider, these may address considerations around food, worship, privacy and culturally appropriate service. For patients travelling with relatives or navigating care across borders, those details can make treatment feel more comfortable and easier to manage. 

Thailand helped establish Asia’s modern medical tourism model, with Bangkok becoming its most visible centre, but Thailand’s appeal is broader than hospital care alone.

The country’s healthcare story also encompasses cosmetic surgery, dermatology, dental care, Thai massage, spa culture and recovery-led hospitality. Thailand’s Board of Investment describes the country’s medical and wellness strategy through interconnected pillars that include wellness, medical services, academia and health-related products, with wellness services covering preventive care, health promotion, relaxation and overall wellbeing.

What Thailand is offering is clinical care with service, recovery and beauty infrastructure built around it. A patient may arrive for a specialist consultation, procedure, aesthetic treatment, dental work or health screening, then recover in a destination already accustomed to international guests, extended stays and hospitality around care.

Bumrungrad International Hospital remains an influential example of how a hospital can organise itself around an international patient population. The hospital offers medical coordination, language and cultural support, appointment and records assistance, travel coordination and help with medically necessary visa extensions. Its Medical Coordination Office also assists with communication between patients, families and clinical teams before admission, during treatment and after discharge. The hospital has held Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation since 2002 and reports that it was the first hospital in Asia to receive it. It received its seventh JCI reaccreditation in 2024. 

Thailand is teaching the world that service design can be part of good clinical care. Interpretation can ensure that international patients understand consent and treatment. Coordinated records matter critically when care is handed off across borders. Scheduling, travel support and recovery environments can reduce disruption at an already stressful time. All the other fundamentals—practitioner qualifications, equipment, continuity of care—matter, of course, but so does a smooth arrival.

South Korea has made youthful-looking skin and aesthetic refinement part of its global cultural vocabulary. Its influence extends beyond K-beauty products to an extensive clinical sector encompassing dermatology, plastic surgery, nonsurgical treatments and increasingly sophisticated beauty technologies.

Seoul’s concentration of specialist clinics has created access to a wide range of procedures, while Korean beauty culture has helped normalise meticulous skincare, regular maintenance and the pursuit of incremental rather than necessarily dramatic change.

That reputation is reinforced by South Korea’s international cultural reach. In a 2025 overseas perception survey cited by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, South Korea ranked first among 12 leading biohealth countries for its cosmetics industry for the second consecutive year. The ministry identified the popularity of Korean cosmetics, K-beauty and wider Korean cultural content as contributing factors in the growth of foreign-patient visits.

Official data show that 2.01 million foreign patients received care in South Korea in 2025, the first time the annual total exceeded two million. Dermatology accounted for 1.313 million patients, or 62.9 per cent of the total, followed by plastic surgery at 11.2 per cent. Seoul received 87.2 per cent of all recorded foreign patients, while 87.7 per cent were treated in clinics rather than large hospitals. These figures make it clear that aesthetics is not peripheral to South Korea’s international healthcare appeal; it is the sector’s principal gateway.

South Korea’s contribution is the idea that appearance can be maintained over time rather than addressed only through occasional correction. Skin quality, sun damage, pigmentation, texture and the visible effects of ageing are treated as concerns that can be managed progressively.

Japan’s reputation for longevity closely linked with Okinawa, widely associated with high numbers of centenarians and popularised through Dan Buettner’s Blue Zone narrative.

Okinawa’s historical advantage was real, particularly among generations born before the Second World War. Research has examined a combination of diet, physical activity, public health, social life, economic conditions, climate and possible genetic factors. No single food, ritual or Japanese concept has been established as the independent cause.

More recent demographic analysis complicates this familiar story. Older Okinawan cohorts retained highly favourable mortality patterns, while people born after the 1950s experienced higher mortality than their counterparts in mainland Japan, particularly among men.

This does not make ideas such as ikigai—also known as a reason for being—social connection, regular movement or dietary moderation irrelevant. It does show the danger of reducing a complex population to a neat list of lifestyle rules.

Okinawa may be most instructive because its longevity advantage was neither universal nor permanent. Health-supporting environments can benefit one generation and weaken in another as diets, transport, employment and social conditions change. Longevity is not a cultural possession that remains intact without continued support.

India brings Ayurveda into the longevity conversation, with Kerala among its most internationally visible centres. Ayurveda, often translated as the “science of life”, is a traditional medical system that includes diet, herbal treatments, movement and lifestyle practices. It places emphasis on constitution, digestion, sleep, routine and the individual’s relationship with the environment.

Ayurveda does not confine health to the consultation room. Everyday patterns of eating, rest and activity become part of its framework for maintaining health over a lifetime.

Its visibility in Kerala has been formalised through tourism standards. Kerala Tourism classifies approved Ayurveda centres as Ayur Silver, Ayur Gold or Ayur Diamond. It’s worth noting that these categories assess facilities and service requirements, but do not certify that every treatment offered is clinically effective.

In general, the scientific evidence remains uneven. The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health reports that relatively few well-designed clinical trials are available, while much of the research is small or methodologically weak. Some Ayurvedic preparations have also been found to contain potentially harmful levels of lead, mercury or arsenic.

So while Ayurvedic preparations—especially those meant to be ingested—need further scrutiny, we can recognise that Ayurveda itself may provide a culturally meaningful framework for rest, routine and attention to daily habits. 

Bali has long attracted visitors seeking yoga, spa traditions, spiritual retreat, nature and a temporary escape from the pressures of ordinary life. Indonesia is now trying to extend that established wellness identity into formal healthcare, bringing clinical treatment, aesthetics, hospitality and recovery into the same destination rather than treating them as unrelated industries.

Sanur is at the centre of that ambition. Designated Indonesia’s first health-focused Special Economic Zone, the district brings together Bali International Hospital, the NgoerahSun Wellness and Aesthetic Centre and the surrounding tourism and hospitality infrastructure. Bali International Hospital began operating in April 2025, and President Prabowo Subianto formally inaugurated both the hospital and the Sanur Special Economic Zone on June 25 that year.

The development has two related aims. Indonesia wants to give its own citizens more reasons to receive advanced treatment at home rather than travel overseas. At the same time, it hopes to position Bali as a healthcare destination for regional and international patients. The government has explicitly linked the project to reducing outbound medical spending and building greater national self-reliance in healthcare.

It’s easy to see the reasoning behind this: a patient might travel for a health screening, specialist consultation, medical procedure or aesthetic treatment, then recuperate in a destination already equipped for extended stays. Bali’s hospitality experience could support the nonclinical parts of that journey, including accommodation, food, rest, family needs and the practical transition from treatment to recovery.

Bali’s promise is not that scenery or spirituality can replace medicine. It is testing whether a destination already associated with restoration can provide a more coherent environment around credible medical care. The beach is an amenity, not a treatment—but it may make recovery considerably more pleasant.

Hong Kong provides a useful counterweight to the idea that longevity must be found in a retreat, private clinic or experimental protocol.

In 2024, life expectancy at birth was 82.7 years for men and 88.2 years for women, placing Hong Kong among the longest-lived populations in the world. A comparative study published in The Lancet Public Health found that Hong Kong’s survival advantage was strongly associated with low cardiovascular mortality and low smoking-attributable mortality. Reduced smoking-related deaths accounted for a substantial share of its advantage over other affluent populations.

Hong Kong also continues to formalise the role of Chinese medicine within its healthcare system. The government released its first Chinese Medicine Development Blueprint in December 2025, while the Chinese Medicine Hospital of Hong Kong and the permanent Government Chinese Medicines Testing Institute began services that month.

But here’s an important caveat: high life expectancy is also not the same as universally good health. Living longer is one measure of success; how those additional years are lived is another.

Asia’s longevity map is still changing, with governments increasingly connecting healthcare, tourism, hospitality and regulation.

Da Nang has introduced a medical-tourism development plan covering 2025 to 2030, with a longer-term vision extending to 2050. The Vietnamese city aims to combine hospitals, coastal tourism and wellness services. For now, however, it remains a development strategy rather than evidence of a mature international-patient system.

In June 2026, Dubai established the Dubai Longevity Authority. Its mandate includes licensing and supervising longevity-related research, clinical trials, manufacturing, therapies and patient clinics under what the government describes as a science-led, risk-proportionate regulatory structure.

Because the authority is new, its significance will depend on the standards it adopts and how effectively it distinguishes established care from legitimate experimentation and commercial speculation.

Beyond Ayurveda and Kerala, India is also promoting a wider medical and wellness travel ecosystem through Heal in India, medical visas and a dedicated Ayush visa. According to government figures, 507,244 foreigners arrived in India specifically for medical treatment in 2025. 

As Asia’s longevity map expands, it’s not a competition about which country has the best model, but what each service is actually offering. A clinic, retreat, treatment or medical-wellness trip should first be understood by its purpose: diagnosis, prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, appearance, recovery or rest. From there, one can ask the relevant questions: what evidence supports the claim, who is medically accountable, what risks are known and how care continues after the patient returns home.

The word “longevity” is sometimes used as marketing copy. Focusing on longevity clarifies the goal; but used loosely, it can be a label for old treatments or false claims.

The meaning of longevity is not simply to live for more years or to remain visibly young. It is to age with as much health, function, independence and connection as possible. Asia’s most important contribution is the reminder that this depends not only on treatment or technology, but also on diet, prevention, public policy, culture, relationships and the environments in which people live.

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