That medical science has been able to slightly compensate for the forms of cell and tissue damage characteristic of aging, without in any way deliberately targeting these causes of age-related disease, enough to keep people alive for longer in ill health, is an impressive feat. It is very hard to keep a damaged machine working without fixing the damage, and vast efforts have been devoted to this end in the case of the human machine. We can see the results in terms of increased human life expectancy, albeit life lived in the shadow of frailty and ill health.
Realistically, this vast expenditure of resources is a misguided effort, a wasted effort, that should instead be devoted to attempts to repair the damage of aging, the underlying causes of frailty and ill health. The immediate past seems fairly dismal, but we can be optimistic about the future. At this point it seems inevitable that a great realignment of goals and priorities will take place within the medical research and development community. Enough resources are now devoted to addressing the damage of aging that we should start to see the first high profile successes in the years ahead, and those successes will light the way to the better path to the treatment of aging as a medical condition.
Today's open access paper is a quantification of the present problem; that vast expenditure has led only to gains in the time spent in poor health and diminished function at the end of of life. Therapies that can repair the damage of aging will not produce outcomes that look like this; they will instead extend healthy life span.
Global Healthspan-Lifespan Gaps Among 183 World Health Organization Member States
To quantify the healthspan-lifespan gap across the globe, investigate for sex disparities, and analyze morbidity and mortality associations., this retrospective cross-sectional study used the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Health Observatory as the global data source and acquired national-level data covering all continents. The 183 WHO member states were investigated. Statistical analysis was conducted from January to May 2024.
Changes in life expectancy and health-adjusted life expectancy, as well as the healthspan-lifespan gap were quantified for all participating member states. Gap assessment was stratified by sex. Correlations of the gap with morbidity and mortality were examined. The healthspan-lifespan gap has widened globally over the last 2 decades among 183 WHO member states, extending to 9.6 years. A sex difference was observed with women presenting a mean (standard deviation) healthspan-lifespan gap of 2.4 (0.5) years wider than men. Healthspan-lifespan gaps were positively associated with the burden of noncommunicable diseases and total morbidity, and negatively with mortality. The US presented the largest healthspan-lifespan gap, amounting to 12.4 years, underpinned by a rise in noncommunicable diseases.
This study identifies growing healthspan-lifespan gaps around the globe, threatening healthy longevity across worldwide populations. Women globally exhibited a larger healthspan-lifespan gap than men.
View the full article at FightAging
