Tag Archives: healthspan

XPRIZE Healthspan Finals

XPRIZE Healthspan Finals: The Latest in the Race to Extend Healthy Aging

Imagine reaching your 70s or 80s with the strength to keep moving, the clarity to stay engaged, and the independence to continue living life on your own terms. For too many people, the later decades of life are marked not by vitality, but by impaired muscle function, cognition, and immune function.

But what if we could change what it means to grow old? As populations age and age-related conditions continue to rise worldwide, improving healthspan has become one of the defining scientific and public health challenges of our time. It’s a challenge the $101 million XPRIZE Healthspan competition was created to address. As XPRIZE announces the 20 finalist teams advancing to the next stage of the competition, we’ll look at what XPRIZE means to the global race to transform how we age – and, more importantly, what the competition has decided to measure.

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Recovery and Longevity Supporting Strength

Recovery and Longevity: Supporting Strength, Resilience, and Healthspan

Movement, nutrition, sleep, stress reduction, and social connection: experts recommend these five core pillars of longevity as part of an everyday routine that supports a long and healthy life. Increasingly, however, the concept of recovery as an additional pillar of longevity is gaining traction as a fundamental part of staying strong, resilient, and healthy as we age.

“What we actually want is both more years and more of those years lived in good health,” says Dr. David Barzilai, a longevity physician and the medical editor of Harvard Health Publishing’s Special Health Report Pathways to Longevity. “Almost no one wants additional years of frailty and dependence; they want more years of feeling well, moving freely, thinking clearly, and staying engaged with the people and work they love.”

Recovery — allowing the body regular opportunities to repair muscle tissue, balance hormones, and consolidate memories — helps achieve those years of good health by directly supporting strength, resilience, and long-term healthspan.

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The Mighty Mitochondria - A Look at the Cellular Powerhouse

The Mighty Mitochondria: A Look at the Cellular Powerhouse and Its Role in Health and Longevity

When it comes to optimizing health and longevity, it’s often the little things that have the greatest impact – specifically, mitochondria. These tiny, membrane-bound organelles found in eukaryotic cells generate energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) while regulating key cellular processes throughout the body, from calcium storage and heat production to metabolic function. Known as the powerhouse of the cell, mitochondria play a central role in overall health and longevity and understanding these small-but-mighty messengers could be the key to enjoying longer, healthier lifespans.

Mitochondrial health is a vital component to many important wellness outcomes, including energy and vitality, healthy aging, cardiovascular health, cognitive function, mental health, fertility, and women’s health. However, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutates up to 10 times faster than nuclear DNA, and these mutations can disrupt energy production, accelerate aging, and contribute to metabolic disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, and cancer. Because mitochondria are so integral to energy metabolism and cellular signaling, mutations in mtDNA can have widespread consequences throughout the body.

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