Mayo Clinic Question and Answer: Lifespan versus Healthspan, by Abby Smith, September 14, 2024
“With lifespan, people are trying to add years to life. For healthspan, we are trying to add life to your years. We are trying to optimize the number of active, healthy and productive years that you enjoy. Lifespan refers to the total number of years a person lives, from birth to death. Healthspan is a concept that focuses on the number of those years that a person remains free of significant illness or disease.”
“The Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging at Mayo Clinic aims to improve healthspan through understanding the fundamental biological mechanisms of aging. The intent is to better understand the aging process to come up with interventions that have the potential to delay the onset of age-related diseases as a group. Whether it’s Alzheimer’s disease, heart failure, cardiovascular disease or stroke, most conditions or diseases are a result of getting older. In contrast to managing one disease at a time, targeting aging itself has the potential to postpone the onset of age-related diseases, extend healthspan and reduce the length of disease and disability in our final days.”
“As much as we’re searching for the “magic pill,” our studies show that lifestyle factors such as physical activity, healthy nutritional habits, social connectedness and sleep profoundly affect how well we age and extend our healthspan. What we’ve shown in our studies is that higher levels of physical activity and reduced calories while maintaining adequate nutrition have the potential to reduce the number and burden of the cells. Taking care of your body and incorporating some of these fundamental activities can improve your lifespan and build a foundation for healthy aging.”
Nathan LeBrasseur, Ph.D., Director of the Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging,
Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota
