How healthy is the healthspan concept?

The concept of healthspan, the period of life spent in good health, has gained significant traction in geroscience. However, this paper argues that a lack of standardized metrics for measuring healthspan hinders rigorous scientific research. The subjectivity of "good health," the complexity of defining the end of healthspan, and the continuous, dynamic nature of health pose challenges to quantifying healthspan. The author suggests that until a comprehensive healthspan metric is developed, the term should be used cautiously in scientific literature, primarily as a conceptual construct. Despite these limitations, the concept's value in popularizing geroscience and focusing research on improving health remains.

Matt Kaeberlein