Lifespan and Healthspan: Past, Present, and Promise

The past century was a period of increasing life expectancy throughout the age range. This resulted in more people living to old age and to spending more years at the older ages. It is likely that increases in life expectancy at older ages will continue, but life expectancy at birth is unlikely to reach levels above 95 unless there is a fundamental change in our ability to delay the aging process. We have yet to experience much compression of morbidity as the age of onset of most health problems has not increased markedly. In recent decades, there have been some reductions in the prevalence of physical disability and dementia. At the same time, the prevalence of disease has increased markedly, in large part…