Years and healthspan: living longer, or living well

Lifespan is how many years you get. Healthspan is how many of them you spend in reasonable health, doing what you want, without depending on other people for the basics.

They are not the same number, and the gap between them is usually several years. That gap is where almost all the fear about ageing actually lives. Very few people say they are afraid of being old. They say they are afraid of being dependent.

Modern medicine has been remarkably good at adding years. It has been less good at adding good ones, which is why more people now live for a long time with conditions that would once have ended things sooner.

That is progress, and it is incomplete progress. Extending life without extending the quality of it is not the whole job.

Nothing expensive or novel, which is the striking part. Keeping muscle. Moving most days. Sleeping properly. Eating enough protein and enough fibre. Keeping blood pressure and blood sugar in hand. Staying among people. Hearing and seeing well enough to take part.

Every one of those appears on this site somewhere else, because they are the same short list from different directions.

Living to a hundred is not most people's actual wish. What they want is to be walking, thinking clearly, managing their own home and enjoying company for as long as they get, and for the difficult part at the end to be short.

That is a far more achievable aim than adding years, and rather more within your influence. This is general guidance, not medical advice.