How well you live, not only how long.

Lifespan is how long you live. Healthspan is how long you remain healthy, capable and independent. The two have been drifting apart for decades - we have got better at extending life without getting much better at extending the part of it people actually want.

Monarch exists to narrow the gap between the two. Most of what closes it is decided years before it shows, which is the argument for measuring early - not because everything is fixable, but because the options are wider the earlier you look.

Most healthcare is organized around diseases. Healthspan is not.

The things that decide how well you live over the next ten, twenty or thirty years cross the boundaries medicine is usually organized by. A cardiologist, an endocrinologist and a physiotherapist can each be right about their own part and still leave the person between them unmanaged.

Cardiovascular healthaffects cognition.
Muscleaffects independence.
Sleepaffects metabolic and cognitive health.
Hearingaffects social connection, and so cognition.
Nutritionaffects strength and resilience.

That is why we manage the whole picture rather than a list of parts - physicians, measurement and ongoing care together, to reduce the risk of disease, hold functional capacity and preserve independence throughout life.

Health is easier to keep than to recover.

What this does not mean

Healthspan has become a marketing word, so it is worth saying what we are not claiming. There is no single number that captures how well someone is ageing, and we do not publish one. Tests that promise to tell you how old your body really is are interesting, and not yet reliable enough to base a decision on. Nothing here reverses ageing, and a service telling you otherwise is selling something.

What is well supported is narrower and more useful: several things that shorten healthy life are measurable long before they cause symptoms, and several of those respond to being acted on. That is a smaller claim than the field usually makes, and it is one we can stand behind.

The twelve topics of healthspan

Six risks that shorten healthy life, and six things that keep it. Each one covers what is known, what is uncertain, and what happens here.

What shortens healthspan

The six areas where measuring early most changes what can be done. Each is usually found late, and each reaches into the others.

What keeps it

The habits and capacities that decide how the six above turn out. Several are among the most solidly evidenced things a person can act on, and several are the ones a service menu leaves out.