A recent Times article discusses the importance of ‘healthspan‘ vs lifespan and argues that healthspan is more important. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a bioethicist, wrote in the Atlantic “it’s not worth living as long as humanly possible if those efforts yield extra decades defined by disease and poor health, which data suggest is the fate awaiting many people in the U.S”.

Tim Peterson, CEO of Healthspan Technologies, a startup focused on healthy aging, told Times, “It’s great to live to 100, but less so if you live the last 30 years in poor health.” According to 2019 WHO estimates “global lifespan has risen to 73.4 years, while healthy lifespan lags behind at 63.7 years”.

The Times reports that the “U.S. life expectancy has risen considerably over the last century, from 59.6 years for those born in 1922 to 77.5 years for those born in 2022″.

Peterson further added “healthspan, however, has consistently lagged behind, largely due to high rates of age-associated chronic conditions including cancer, dementia, and heart disease. Many Americans also don’t sleep enough, exercise enough, or eat enough nutritious food, all of which can detract from long-term well-being.”

Dr. Andre Terzic, a regenerative medicine specialist at the Mayo Clinic, told “Yes, we live longer. But there is a price to pay, and that price is we may not necessarily live healthier, longer.”

Dr. Emanuel told the Times that people’s health span should be expanded with the following approach:

• “Rather than developing new aging-reversal drugs that, at least at first, would likely cater toward wealthy people who can pay for them, Emanuel feels the medical system should tackle long-standing health problems including hypertension, diabetes, and maternal and infant mortality—all of which are treatable or preventable, and all of which are most prevalent among the underserved populations that are also most likely to die and develop diseases even younger than the national average. Black and American Indian/Alaska Native people in the U.S. have life expectancies of 72.8 and 67.9 years, respectively, according to the new 2022 data.
• “So much of life-long health, also comes down to behaviors like eating a nutritious diet and getting enough sleep, exercise, and social support—things that are simple on their faces, but in practice far more achievable for people with leisure time and money. As he sees it, promoting and enabling those habits for everyone, and making better use of medical treatments that are already available, is a more urgent priority than chasing the “pipe dream” of a future in which aging is optional.”