Healthy Life Extension Positioned as Geroscience’s North Star

Mar 18, 2026

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BUFFALO, NY — March 18, 2026 — A new #editorial was #published in Volume 18 of Aging-US on March 10, 2026, titled “Healthy life extension: Geroscience’s north star.” Led by David A. Barzilai — who is affiliated with Geneva College of Longevity Science, Healthspan Coaching LLC (Barzilai Longevity Consulting), and Harvard Medical School — the editorial pays tribute to the late Mikhail Blagosklonny and states that geroscience should adopt healthy life extension (measured as health-adjusted survival such as HALE and QALYs) as its primary objective rather than treating lifespan and healthspan as competing goals. Dr. Barzilai urges clearer outcome priorities, disciplined evidence in mammals, and coordinated investment that matches the field’s potential to delay multimorbidity and extend high-quality years of life. The piece reviews data showing that increases in life expectancy have outpaced gains in healthy life expectancy and summarizes calls to measure success by health-adjusted longevity rather than biomarkers alone. It highlights examples where targeting conserved aging pathways produced replicable lifespan gains in mammals (for example, rapamycin in mice) and notes early human-facing signals (for example, mTOR inhibition improving influenza vaccine responses in older adults) that illustrate how aging-biology interventions can be clinically legible on shorter timelines. The editorial also frames the practical challenge: while lifespan evidence is ideal, human trials must use rigorous, meaningful endpoints that map to delayed multimorbidity, preserved function, and resilience. “Geroscience is for healthy life extension. We should stop pretending that lifespan and healthspan compete.” Dr. Barzilai calls for a “moonshot”-level commitment to aging biology that includes larger, better-funded basic programs, clinical trials with health-adjusted survival endpoints, and translational pipelines able to move robust mammalian lifespan findings toward human studies. He stresses the need for replicable mammalian lifespan data paired with human endpoints that reflect quality of life and independence. The editorial closes with a direct pledge in honor of Dr. Blagosklonny’s legacy, in part to make healthy life extension the field’s north star and measure success in years worth living. DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.206359 Corresponding author - David A. Barzilai - d.barzilai@gcls.study Intro video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MwFvDg7Ejw Sign up for free Altmetric alerts about this article - https://aging.altmetric.com/details/email_updates?id=10.18632%2Faging.206359 Subscribe for free publication alerts from Aging - https://www.aging-us.com/subscribe-to-toc-alerts Keywords - aging, geroscience, longevity, healthspan, longevity medicine, healthy life extension To learn more about the journal, please visit https://www.Aging-US.com and connect with us on social media at: Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/aging-us.bsky.social ResearchGate - https://www.researchgate.net/journal/Aging-1945-4589 X - https://twitter.com/AgingJrnl Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AgingUS/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/agingjrnl/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/aging/ Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/user/AgingUS/ Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/AgingUS/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@Aging-US Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1X4HQQgegjReaf6Mozn6Mc MEDIA@IMPACTJOURNALS.COM