What does healthspan mean, and why does AnandBodh keep using it instead of lifespan?
The distinction the whole approach rests on.
Lifespan counts the years between birth and death. Healthspan asks how many of those years are lived with real capacity - strength, mobility, memory, curiosity, a place among people.
They are not the same outcome, and this is not a philosophical nicety. Medicine can extend survival without restoring function, and often does. Equally, a person may come into their later years on fewer medicines, stronger, with a wider circle around them - not because ageing was defeated, but because capacity was protected along the way.
Which changes what the work is. Longevity stops being a contest against wrinkles and becomes the practice of protecting function.
The purpose is not to become endlessly old. It is to remain deeply alive.
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