Longevity has always been one of the main goals that many of us work towards and, through modern medicine, have made possible since the latter half of the 20th century. However, living long does not automatically mean living healthily.
People could live up to 80 or 90 years old and still spend a fifth of their lifetime either being treated for multiple illnesses and/or living in poor health. In fact, recent studies have shown that, while we have had a longer average lifespan since the past few decades, our healthspan, the number of years lived in good health and free from illnesses, is falling behind in comparison.
In short, we are not being healthy for as long as we usually live.
However, it doesn’t have to be that way. And to find out why and how, we must first understand what a healthspan is and why it might matter more than a lifespan, before finding ways to improve it and our lives in general.
Healthspan and Why It Matters
As mentioned before, a health span is the estimated period in a person’s life where they are in general good health without any diseases (except for inborn or genetic ones). This differs from lifespan, which is the total expected number of years that a person usually lives.
The main issue is that there is large gap between the two due to the former consistently lagging and being shorter than the latter, leaving a period of poor health and dealing with various lifestyle or age-associated conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and more in people’s lives. This space is made more apparent in a 2021 study done by doctors from the Mayo Clinic, USA, where the average lifespan-healthspan gap was estimated to be around nine (9) years for global populations in 2020.
If we only focused simply on living longer, we would certainly experience more of that gap period and our quality of life might not get better. A few local examples of this are those who suffer from diabetes, of which 1 in 14 Filipinos is affected and is one of the top morbidities this in the Philippines. When it’s caught early, the person would just need to make a few new tweaks to your diet and daily routine and may take some maintenance medication. If not, then that can lead to more serious complications, like as blindness, kidney problems, and more, which need more robust and expensive treatments that can last for years.
This phenomenon is also true for many other leading diseases and causes of death in the country, which include heart diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, and tumors, as reported in 2023 by the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Cases like this are among the many reasons why several institutions and professionals are finding ways to either close or, at least, shorten that gap as much as possible. This is because our healthspan deeply affects the quality of our lives and prolonging it makes living a bit more sustainable.
By putting more emphasis on living healthily for as long as possible, we can lessen the chances of us dealing with serious illnesses and the physical, mental, social, and even financial challenges they can bring. And having a longer one can allow us to live more fully and do more with the time we have left.
So, what can we do to make our healthspan longer?
Longer Healthspan: Healthy Body Age via Healthy Weight
One of the ways we can prolong our healthspan is by adjusting our own lifestyle to a healthier direction, which we can start with by having a healthy body age and weight.
Body age, also known as metabolic age, is a way to measure the difference between the rate at which your body burns calories while at rest (basal metabolic rate or BMR) and the average BMR of others within your age range. Now, while it isn’t a complete representation of your health, it can help you understand where you are health-wise compared to the rest of your peers. Usually, a healthy body age would amount to either the same amount or a little less than your actual age, which shows that the body burns just as much or more than it absorbs.
You can achieve this by adjusting your diet to your body’s calorie needs (whether you need to gain or lose weight), being physically active regularly, and living a healthier lifestyle that can improve your body age. Doing any of these without the others would likely result in regaining any weight lost since your body needs to both adjust to the new amount of calorie intake and expend its resting energy to keep its metabolism up, as explained by Harvard Medical School’s findings on the topic.
In summary, getting yourself to a healthy body age and weight can go a long way into extending your healthspan, especially if you start early. Yet, there will be times when you might need a little bit more help, especially if you are new to this and/or if you can’t access many of the things you need at that moment.
Luckily, NUTRILITE™ can assist you in your journey to healthy living and here’s why and how.
Enter: NUTRILITE™ and Its Solutions
NUTRILITE™, known for its traceable and effective plant-based products, has recently released specially designed solutions that not only help you achieve your healthy body age more sustainably, but also address certain health gaps that you might be struggling with in your diet. These solutions have various categories, but the ones you currently need for improving your body age would be the Healthy Weight and Nutrition Solutions.
For the Healthy Weight Solutions, each one has products from both NUTRILITE™ itself and BodyKey™ by NUTRILITE™ that work together to give you balanced, delicious, and nutritious meals that give you your nutrient needs in around 200 calories, while getting the most benefits out of its plant-based ingredients. All of these combined makes for effective solutions that greatly help you in working for a more sustainable weight management, as shown by what the participants of our 90-Day BodyKey™ Shake It Up program achieved, which were unveiled at the Grand Launch of BodyKey™ by NUTRILITE™ in the Philippines last May 6, 2023.
On the other hand, NUTRILITE™’s Healthy Nutrition Solutions focus on improving people’s health throughout the different stages of their lives and helping in reducing the possible risks for any lifestyle diseases they might gain later, such as the top morbidities in the Philippines mentioned earlier. Each solution here is tailored to provide people nutritional support depending on their health needs and overall health goals, such as how the NUTRILITE™ Immunity Pack can help you lessen your chances of getting sick often.
Of course, these solutions work best when you include them in a healthy lifestyle that you might be planning to or are already following. This entails pairing them with your aims of getting the adequate nutrition you need (i.e., getting enough protein in your healthy whole meals and meal replacements) and being physically active with a sustainable fitness routine. It also includes meeting nutrient gaps with effective health supplements, especially during and/or because of weight loss, and applying healthier habits like getting ample sleep, mindfulness practices and more.
For example, many Filipinos who are either starting out or are already working on achieving a healthy weight and improving their overall health can count on our BodyKey™ by NUTRILITE™ Starter Solution with the NUTRILITE™ Next Gen Double X™ (31 Day Supply) to help them in their goals. With this solution containing products such as the BodyKey™ by NUTRILITE™ Meal Replacement Shakes (in all 3 flavors), the NUTRILITE™ GreenTrim, the NutriliteTM Chrompic Extra, the BodyKey™ by NUTRILITE™ Transformation Journal, the BodyKey™ by NUTRILITE™ Personalized Assessment Booklet, they can have the tools and guides they need to start and structure their efforts to attaining a healthy weight and body age, as well as support them in their consistent effort with it.
Overall, prolonging healthspan can help improve your quality of life, and one of the most effective ways to achieve that is to gain a healthy body age via healthy and sustainable weight management. And what better help can you get than from NUTRILITE™?
The brand provides the help needed to reach that state through its proven, plant-based solutions and the personalized support from NUTRILITE™ Health and Wellness Consultants, all to help Filipinos, especially those suffering from lifestyle diseases, live better, healthier lives.
