REDEFINING LONGEVITY

Women don't want to live to be 150. They just want to feel good now—and in all the years they do have. Meet the rapidly expanding group of experts working to completely flip the narrative on what it means to live longer and stronger.

- Currie Engel

It's all around—in the stories we read as children, the movies we watch, the ads we see—our entire lives. In Harry Potter, it's the sorcerer's stone, which produces an elixir that extends the drinker's lifespan. In The Substance, Demi Moore plays an aging woman who buys black market drugs to generate a younger version of herself. News headlines are peppered with tales of vampiric blood injections, cryogenic chambers, and optimized sleep cycles. Booming basses on podcasts promise listeners that if they, too, follow this 99-step plan, they can live to be 112. In 2023, the global market for antiaging products was valued at around $47 billion, a number projected to reach nearly $80 billion by 2030.

We're taught that the most valuable thing in this life is simply more of it. And that concept is hammered in, making some think that tens of thousands of dollars spent on biohacking regimens and IVs will suddenly make them feel 18 again.

But the truth is that "longevity" looks very different for women. And right now, "80 percent of the longevity conversation is men talking to men," says Roma van der Walt, a former member of the German national team in modern pentathlon, a sports scientist, and the CEO and founder of Vitelle. Although women outlive men by more than five years on average, they spend 25 percent more years in poor health, as a result of scientific bias and barriers to care, per a report from the World Economic Forum and the McKinsey Health Institute.

So, Demi Moore aside, women are realizing they're more interested in feeling good and healthy in the time they have than living to be 120. This simple fact is why almost every expert interviewed for this article told Women's Health they prefer the term healthspan over longevity—because it better captures what they're hoping to solve: How can women be as healthy as possible for as long as possible?