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Healthspan: The Health Crisis Facing the US - E72
12 Plays2 hours ago
More than 12 years of poor health - that’s the average American’s reality, even as medicine extends our lifespans.
Chronic illness, lost independence, and emotional strain can turn our extra years into burdens instead of blessings. The gap between living long and living well is bigger in the US than anywhere else, leaving millions feeling stuck in bodies that survive but don’t thrive.
This episode is the second in a micro series diving into what healthspan actually means. Join me to unpack the urgency behind the healthspan crisis and map out why even advanced healthcare has failed to solve it.
In this episode you will learn:
- Why the gap between lifespan and healthspan exists and why it matters now.
- What the longevity paradox is and how it affects quality of life in America.
- How medical progress has helped people live longer but not always healthier lives.
- Why chronic diseases cause most of the years spent in poor health.
- How the healthspan gap impacts personal life, society, and the economy.
- The role of gender differences in healthspan and why women spend more years in poor health.
Resources
- Connect with Andrew on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mandrewmcconnell
- Follow Alively on Instagram for regular updates and insights: https://www.instagram.com/alively_official
- Learn more about healthspan from Andrew’s blog: https://www.mandrewmcconnell.com/blog
This podcast was produced by the team at Zapods Podcast Agency:
Find the products, practices, and routines discussed on the Alively website:
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Transcript
Introduction: Quality of Life and Independence
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It represents a decreased quality of life, a loss of independence, and the deep emotional toll of being alive but not really living. It's a grandparent who's present at the birthday party but too frail to play with her grandchild.
00:00:14
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It's a retiree who dreamed of traveling the world who's now tethered to endless doctor's appointments or even physically to machines.
Podcast Focus: Healthspan Role Models
00:00:26
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This is the Home of Healthspan podcast, where we profile health and wellness role models, sharing their stories and the tools, practices, and routines they use to live a lively life.
Defining Healthspan vs. Lifespan
00:00:40
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Welcome back to the Home of Healthspan and this, the second part in our five-part series dedicated to the concept of Healthspan. Last time we laid the foundation, we defined healthspan as the years of life free from disease and disability, where you maintain high physical and cognitive function.
00:01:05
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We talked about the shift from simply wanting a long lifespan to demanding a long healthspan.
The Healthspan Urgency
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Today, we move from the what to the why.
00:01:16
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Why is this conversation so urgent right now? We're going to create the sense of urgency by diving deep into the compelling and honestly quite startling data behind what's known as the longevity paradox.
00:01:30
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According to the World Health Organization, the average American can now expect to spend more than 12 years of their life in poor health. More than a decade.
00:01:42
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Let that sink in. More than a decade of dealing with sickness, disability, and lower quality of life. We've been so focused on the finish line, our lifespan, that we've ignored the quality of the race itself.
00:01:58
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Today, we're diving into the numbers behind this longevity paradox and exploring why the US has the largest gap between lifespan and healthspan in the entire world.
Exploring the Longevity Paradox
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This isn't just a feeling or theory. It's a measurable reality. Let's start with the global picture. Globally, there is a significant disparity between how long people live and how long they live well.
00:02:26
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The average gap between lifespan and healthspan can be anywhere from nine years to up to 15, depending on the data you look at. The latest data on the World Health Organization has a gap in 9.1 years at a global average.
00:02:43
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But for the U.S., the number is much, much worse. The gap on average is 12.4 years. It's 29% higher than the global average.
00:02:57
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Meaning that on average, the American spends more of their lives, nearly 30% is a percent in poor health than their counterparts in other nations, poorer nations.
00:03:10
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And some analyses show that in the US, the gap is actually 15 years, much, much worse. So according to UCLA Health, as well as WHO, the average life expectancy for a man in the U.S. is approximately 75 years.
00:03:27
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But his healthy life expectancy, or HAL, is only about 63. That's 12-year
00:03:34
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But for women, their average life expectancy, longevity, is 80 years, five more years. They get these extra five years, but their healthy life expectancy is just 65, meaning that their gap is 15 years, a decade and a half.
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So the core of this episode is spent on explaining why this gap exists. How can we have the most advanced medical technology in the world and yet have the worst health span gap?
Chronic Diseases and Medical Advances
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It's a true paradox, and it's a paradox born from success. The unprecedented rise in human lifespan over the past century is arguably one of the greatest triumphs of human history.
00:04:19
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A century ago, the global average for lifespan was 35 years. Today, it's over 72. We've more than doubled it. It's a monumental achievement for modern medicine, for sanitation, and for nutrition.
00:04:37
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However, this achievement is overshadowed by the fact that these extra years are not necessarily healthy ones. Think about it this way. A hundred years ago, people were far more likely to die from acute illnesses like bacterial infections, viruses, or accidents.
00:04:54
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Thanks to antibiotics and vaccines, we now survive these things. That very success means the entire populations now live long enough to develop a completely different set of ailments.
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Chronic, non-communicable diseases, or NCDs.
Reactive Healthcare System
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These are slow burn conditions, cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes, and neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's.
00:05:24
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And these NCDs have become the leading cause of mortality globally, accounting for nearly 71% of all deaths every single year. The data shows that the increase in our healthy life expectancy has not kept pace with the increase in our overall life expectancy, primarily because our medical advancements have been far more effective at reducing mortality than at reducing the number of years people live with disability.
00:05:53
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This reveals the heart of the issue. The health span gap is a direct measurable consequence of a system that is reactive and focused on sick care.
00:06:06
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Our model currently is focused on treating diseases after they appear, not in proactively promoting wellness to prevent those conditions from developing in the first place.
00:06:20
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You'd say that the health span gap is the ultimate report card for our current healthcare care philosophy. And frankly, it's a failing grade. This framing elevates our conversation from a collection of health tips into a blueprint for a necessary personal and societal pivot.
00:06:39
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To underscore the urgency here, it's critical to understand that this is not a static
Impact of Recent Events on Healthspan
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problem. It's a growing one. The healthspan-lifespan gap has widened globally over the last two decades.
00:06:51
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Here in the U.S., the gap grew from 10.9 years, less than 11, in 2000 to by 2019, it was 12.4. We're now actively going in the wrong direction.
00:07:04
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Furthermore, recent events have poured fuel on this fire. The COVID-19 pandemic effectively erased nearly a decade of progress in improving healthy longevity. By 2021, global life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, hail, had retreated all the way back to 2012 levels.
00:07:27
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In the future, projections are even more alarming. One forecast indicates that the trend will continue, that the global gap predicted to increase by another 22% 2100. ah twenty one hundred This is a clear warning that without significant change in our approach, our children and our grandchildren will spend an even greater portion of their lives in poor health.
Economic Impact and Gender Disparities
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So what does this gap actually mean in the real world? On a personal level, it represents a decreased quality of life, a loss of independence, and the deep emotional toll of being alive but not really living.
00:08:06
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It's a grandparent who's present at the birthday party, but too frail to play with her grandchild. It's a retiree who dreamed of traveling the world, but who is now tethered to endless doctor's appointments or even physically to machines.
00:08:23
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For society, the consequences are equally severe. a population spending more years in sickness places a tremendous burden on our healthcare systems. It reduces economic productivity and it creates staggering caregiving expenses for families.
00:08:39
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But this challenge also presents an immense opportunity. A report from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health estimates that an increase in life expectancy by just one year is worth an incredible $38 trillion to the economy.
00:08:58
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So by extension, closing the healthspan gap, enabling older adults to remain healthy, productive, and engaged, not just sitting around for longer, represents one of the greatest economic and social opportunities of our time.
00:09:12
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But there's one more crucial and often under-discussed aspect of the issue. It's a counterintuitive finding that adds another layer of complexity. That is the gender disparity.
00:09:25
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As we touched on before, the data clearly reveals that while women live longer than men, they spend a greater proportion of those extra years in poor health. Globally, women experience a health span lifespan gap that is on average two and a half years greater than that for men.
00:09:43
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This difference is linked to a disproportionately larger burden of those NCDs, non-communicable diseases. So as we recap what we've learned today, the gap between how long we live and how long we live well is large.
Empowering Solutions
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It's growing, especially here in the United States. It's the unintended paradoxical consequence of a 20th century medical system that was brilliant at fighting death, but neglected the art and science of preserving health.
00:10:20
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The numbers are daunting, but they're also not our destiny. The point of understanding the problem is to empower us to find and act on solution.
00:10:31
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And that's exactly where we're going to go next in this series. Now that we understand the problem, the next episode is all about the solution. We'll move from the why to the how as we provide a highly actionable evidence-based framework for improving your healthspan.
00:10:50
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<unk> going to build your toolkit with what we call the five pillars of healthspan. Look forward to speaking with you next time and enjoy a lively day. Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the Home of Healthspan podcast.
00:11:05
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And remember, you can always find the products, practices, and routines mentioned by today's guests, as well as many other Healthspan role models on Alively.com. Enjoy a lively day.