On a warm July evening in 2022, the residents of Varapodio, a small town in the southern Italian province of Calabria, came together for a celebration. A marching band played classical tunes in front of the church, which was adorned with hundreds of multicoloured fairy lights. A priest stood solemnly holding a silver chalice of holy water as the mayor cheerfully shook hands with some of the guests – around 100 people of all ages, many of whom were dressed in their Sunday best.

The party had been thrown in honour of Valter Longo, an Italian scientist known for his research into the benefits of fasting. Longo lives between Milan, where he works at the Institute of Molecular Oncology (IFOM), and Los Angeles, where he is the director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California (USC).

1843 magazine