What is healthspan?
You may have heard the word ‘healthspan’ being used in many articles the last few years and wondered what this is and how it fits into your life. Firstly, let’s define a more regular term that you will have heard of; lifespan. Lifespan is how many years we live from birth until death. As simple as that, how long we are alive.
Today there are more octogenarians, nonagenarians and even centenarians than ever before. However, how many of these individuals are living a really good quality of life? Healthspan takes a fresh perspective to the traditional lifespan approach and measures how many years we live healthily.
The Cambridge dictionary defines healthspan as:
the number of years that someone lives or can expect to live in reasonably good health, free of chronic diseases and disabilities of aging
The Cambridge Dictionary
Now we have distinguished between lifespan and healthspan, you can probably see that the two terms are quite distinct from one another. Studies largely show that people live 10 years of their lives burdened with disease or poor quality of life (Garmany and Terzic 2024).
Lifespan and healthspan do not often correlate but surely we all want to live as healthily, and burden free as possible? This would mean more time to spend with family, doing the things you love and living independently.
Once people age and become chronically ill, they can feel a burden on family or society because they can no longer contribute like they once did. People have their own reasons for wanting to live a healthy life for as long as possible, but surely this is what everyone wants? I think this makes healthspan a very interesting topic to discuss and for us all to consider, but can it be measured?
Measuring healthspan
In 2018 Dr Matt Kaeberlein conducted a study; How healthy is the healthspan concept?’ His findings criticised the use of healthspan in terms of not having a universally agreed definition and also not having a standardised method of measurement (Kaeberlein 2018). Health is dynamic, not just good or bad. I think this point holds a lot of merit.
If a person has a condition such as MS, a chronic disease that for some people can have symptoms that come and go. You may have good days and bad days so how do these opposite days measure on the healthspan continuum? And I guess for me, there lies the answer, health is a continuum, you cannot just say you are healthy or not.
A huge proportion of people live with a chronic condition, especially in the last decade of their life. Some of these people may not even be aware they have a chronic condition, living a regular life as they always had (my 91 year old Grandad being an example). However for some with chronic conditions the symptoms can be debilitating, affecting some or even all aspects of their life.
For me, taking all this information into account is how healthspan should be measured – living the majority of your days, with or without chronic conditions, in a non restrictive way. And for people who do have a chronic condition that does affect their lives, a more pragmatic approach is needed. Taking into account the good and bad days and looking at how on average their day to day lives are impacted by their chronic condition.
So is there anything we can do to affect healthspan?
As many of you will know some chronic diseases are affected by genetics and additionally a less known factor can be social status. These fall under the umbrella of non modifiable risk factors for the prevalence of disease and they are inequalities we cannot control in healthspan. However there are modifiable factors we can try to increase our lifespan (not smoking, low alcohol consumption, physical activity and good diet).
As healthspan is a holistic issue, we need a holistic approach. The WHO stated, to address the lifespan-healthspan gap we must start viewing health as:
a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
World Health Organisation
This perspective adds another dimension to measuring healthspan, it is not just the absence of disease. To be healthy, all the multi dimensional factors need to be observed and evaluated. Is the body free from physical disability that impairs it? Not disabilities that someone may have from an early age but from degenerative diseases such as arthritis. For most people, arthritis is a given as we age, however is it life limiting?
Is the mind healthy? Is this an area that is having a negative effect on our health? Maybe stress, anxiety or depression is affecting the things we choose to do in our lives. Social well being has gained a lot of press the last few years, especially post covid. People feeling isolated or lonely has a negative effect on their lives (NHS). With this information, healthspan will be influenced.
So as we see, healthspan is a complex issue. The definition of living ‘disease free’ may not do this complex issue justice and a holistic approach is needed taking into account a person’s; physical, mental and social wellbeing.
Also important to consider, even if a person has a chronic condition, this does not mean their health span is negatively affected. If the condition is controlled/managed, or if the person has lived their entire life with this condition, they may not have any change in the quality of their life when compared to someone with no known chronic condition or disease.
Measuring healthaspan is no easy feat as health is a continuum. People’s conditions may be different on different days. Should an average be looked at here, or is healthspan still affected as they have bad days? There are so many unanswered questions around healthspan and how to measure it. We still don’t have a consensus on the definition!
The health and fitness world often challenges us with many unanswered questions. As healthspan as a topic is in its infancy, there is bound to be so many questions. However I think the concept of healthspan is a step in the right direction rather than just looking at lifespan, even if the theory has a long way to grow.
References
Garmany, A. Terzic, A. (2024). Global Healthsspan-Lifespan Gaps Among 183 World Health Organization Member States. JAMA Network Open. Vol 7. No 12.
Kaeberlein, M (2018). How healthy is the healthspan concept? GeroScience. Vol 40. Pp 361-364.
NHS. Better Health: Every Mind Matters. Dealing with loneliness.
