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Aging Inc.: Japan Sees Growth in Cures

Developing advanced diagnostic toilets with Toto is part of Gov. Yuji Kuroiwa’s plan for Kanagawa Prefecture.
Eric Pfanner/The Wall Street Journal

Japan’s rapidly aging population is generally seen as a burden threatening the country’s long-term economic prospects. But one governor sees lemonade in the demographic lemons, promoting his region as the place where advanced technology will give a boost to healthy longevity.

Amid the country’s “super-aging society,” Kanagawa Prefecture “is the fastest-aging region in Japan,” Yuji Kuroiwa, the governor of the metropolitan area just outside Tokyo, said in a speech Thursday. For stark illustration, he showed the area’s population pyramid literally turning upside down from 1970 to 2050, with the number of citizens aged 75 years or older shifting from the smallest segment to the largest.

From that, “Kanagawa will create a new model,” Mr. Kuroiwa told the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. “Curing ‘Me-Byo’: Healthcare New Frontier,” is title of the booklet explaining his vision.

“Me-byo,” more commonly transliterated as “mibyou,” consists of two characters that literally mean “not yet disease.” Mr. Kuroiwa said it translates roughly into “a state between health and sickness,” adding that the phrase has its roots in traditional herbal medicine.

The basic cures floated by the governor–healthy eating, exercise, regular check-ups, an active social life–are classic preventive medicine well-known everywhere. But Mr. Kuroiwa has a flair for marketing, a skill most prominently on display in his video dancing with the AKB48 girl group to help promote his region. The clip has drawn nearly four million views on YouTube since it was posted last October.

Now Mr. Kuroiwa is trying to sell his prefecture as a global hub not just for aging but also for innovative ways of treating aging. Kanagawa, which includes the cities of Yokohama and Kawasaki, was recently chosen as one of six “special economic zones” by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as part of his growth strategy, regions empowered to loosen regulations.

Mr. Kuroiwa wants to use that to foster a new health-care industry district with a range of technologies to detect and treat mibyou symptoms. One of his brochures touts a plan for “turning toilets into clinics,” a joint venture project between toilet maker Toto Ltd. and NTT PC Communications Inc., to develop a commode programmed to “check gas and excrement to screen diabetes and cancer.”

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