12/12/2023

Why ‘Healthspan’ May Be More Important Than Lifespan

Eleven years exist between how long a U.S. citizen is expected to live and how long they'll live healthily

In 2014, then-57-year-old bioethicist Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel wrote an infamous essay titled, "Why I Hope to Die at 75" for The Atlantic. His argument boiled down to this: 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.

Nearly a decade later, neither Emanuel’s mind nor the statistics have changed much. Emanuel still says he plans to stop most life-extending medical care once he reaches age 75, though he’s healthy enough that he expects to live longer naturally. And there is still a yawning gap between the average number of years someone born in the U.S. can expect to live—77.5, according to a new federal estimate for 2022—and the number of years they can expect to live in full health: 66.1, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest calculations.

Experts often refer to this chasm as the gap between “lifespan” and “healthspan.” And, increasingly, they are focusing on the latter as the right measure of longevity.

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.