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Longevity, decoded. Clear answers to the terms, trends, and science you keep hearing about.
Confused by NAD+, geroscience, or biological age? This is your no-nonsense guide to the language of longevity. We break down key terms, concepts, and buzzwords into clear, digestible explanations.
Officially: Longevity refers to living a long, healthy life by extending both lifespan (how long you live) and healthspan (how well you live). It focuses on maintaining physical and cognitive function while delaying age-related disease through lifestyle, environment, and genetics.
Simply put: Longevity is not just about adding years to your life; it’s about adding life to your years. You want to stay as sharp, strong, and independent for as long as possible. There’s no point living to 100 if your last 20 years are spent being sick.
Officially: Lifespan is the total length of time an organism lives, from birth to death. In humans, the longest confirmed lifespan was 122 years, achieved by Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment (1875–1997). Most scientists believe the upper biological limit for humans is around 120 to 125 years.
Healthspan is the number of years a person lives in good health, free from chronic disease, frailty, or major disability. It measures the quality, not just the quantity, of life.
Simply put: Lifespan is how long you live, period. It’s the number of candles on your birthday cake.
If lifespan is how long you live, healthspan is how long you live well. It’s the difference between merely being alive and actually thriving – walking, travelling, spending time with your family and friends, and generally enjoying life on your own terms.
Officially: Biological age reflects how well your cells, tissues, and organs are functioning compared to your actual (chronological) age. It is estimated using biomarkers that indicate the rate at which your body is ageing.
Chronological age is the exact amount of time a person has lived, measured from their date of birth.
Simply put: Biological age is your body’s real age. You may be 50 on paper, but if your habits are excellent, your body could be humming along like it’s 40. Or, if you’ve been treating it like a rental car… well, you get the idea.
Chronological age is your official age – the one on your passport, driving licence, and birthday cake.
Officially: Healthy ageing is the process of maintaining physical, mental, and social wellbeing as you grow older. It is achieved through regular exercise, a balanced diet, quality sleep, preventive healthcare, and strong social connections, while minimising risks such as smoking and excessive alcohol consumption.
Simply put: It’s about ageing well, not just ageing. The goal isn’t merely to add candles to your birthday cake, but to still be dancing when you blow them out.
Officially: A biomarker is a measurable biological indicator that reflects normal bodily processes, disease states, or responses to treatment. Common examples include cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, and certain genetic markers.
Simply put: Think of biomarkers as your body’s report card. They reveal what’s really happening in your body – sometimes long before symptoms appear – helping doctors spot risks early, personalise treatment, and keep your health on the right track.
Officially: Biohacking is the practice of using science, technology, and self-experimentation to optimise physical and cognitive performance. It ranges from evidence-based lifestyle changes to more experimental interventions.
Simply put: Biohacking is simply upgrading your body’s operating system: Getting better sleep, maintaining smarter nutrition, enjoying sharper focus. At its most hardcore, it can involve implanted devices and extreme regimens. The world’s most famous biohacker, American tech billionaire Bryan Johnson, has turned biohacking into a full-time job.
Officially: A longevity protocol is a structured, evidence-based plan designed to improve healthspan and lifespan. It typically integrates interventions across nutrition, exercise, sleep, supplementation, diagnostics, and recovery, tailored to an individual’s health profile and goals.
Simply put: A longevity protocol is your personal blueprint for ageing well. No one-size-fits-all nonsense here: A personalised protocol is customised to your body, lifestyle, and ambitions. It’s essentially a user manual for becoming a healthier, longer-lasting version of yourself.
Officially: ATP is the primary energy-carrying molecule in all living cells. Produced mainly in the mitochondria, it powers essential processes such as muscle contraction, metabolism, and cellular repair.
Simply put: Think of ATP as your body’s rechargeable battery. Every movement, thought, and heartbeat runs on it. The catch? ATP production tends to decline with age, which is why supporting your mitochondria is a big deal in longevity medicine.
Officially: NAD+ (Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide) is a coenzyme found in every cell, essential for energy production, DNA repair, and cellular function. It plays a central role in helping mitochondria convert nutrients into ATP.
Simply put: If ATP is the battery, then NAD+ is the charger. It helps your cells produce energy and repair themselves. Levels naturally decline with age, which is why it has become the darling of the longevity world. For example, your longevity doctor might recommend taking NAD+ in the form of supplements.
Officially: NMN (Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) is a naturally occurring molecule and a direct precursor to NAD+, supporting cellular energy production, metabolism, and DNA repair.
Simply put: NMN is essentially raw material for making more NAD+. It’s found in foods like avocado and broccoli, although not in quantities likely to spark a miracle. Supplements are popular, but quality varies wildly – so buyer beware, and maybe don’t trust the bottle with the loudest promises.
Officially: VO₂ max is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during intense exercise. It is a key measure of cardiovascular fitness and aerobic capacity. In longevity medicine, VO₂ max serves as a key predictor of healthspan because it directly measures the collective functional integrity of your body’s most vital systems – the heart, lungs, blood vessels, and skeletal muscles.
Simply put: VO₂ max is a measure of how efficiently your body uses oxygen. Basically, it’s your internal horsepower rating. The higher your VO₂ max, the better your endurance, heart health, and overall resilience. It means you can train and/or perform harder without feeling tired, and recover faster, too.
Officially: Inflammation is the body’s immune response to injury, infection, or harmful stimuli. While acute inflammation is essential for healing, chronic inflammation can damage tissues and contribute to disease.
Simply put: Short-term inflammation is your body’s repair crew. Chronic inflammation, however, is like leaving the alarm system blaring for years. Over time, it can quietly fuel everything from heart disease to diabetes – and yes, faster ageing too.
Officially: Glycation is a chemical reaction in which sugar molecules bind to proteins, fats, or DNA, forming harmful compounds known as Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs).
Simply put: When excess sugar sticks to your tissues, it’s a bit like caramelising them from the inside out. Not ideal. This process accelerates ageing, stiffens skin and blood vessels, and contributes to chronic disease. Another reason your body isn’t particularly fond of a sugar overload.
Officially: Longevity medicine is a highly personalised, data-driven branch of healthcare that focuses on optimising functional healthspan and delaying biological ageing using advanced diagnostics, biotechnology, and longevity protocols.
Unlike conventional medicine, which reacts to symptoms after a disease manifests, longevity medicine utilises cutting-edge geroscience to target the underlying cellular mechanisms of ageing before chronic conditions can develop.
Simply put: Longevity medicine is healthcare designed to help you stay healthier for longer. Instead of waiting until you get sick, it focuses on spotting problems early, improving how your body functions as you age, and reducing your risk of chronic diseases down the road.
Think personalised health screenings, fitness and nutrition plans, sleep optimisation, stress management, and lots of data about how your body is actually ageing.
Officially: Preventive medicine focuses on promoting health, preventing disease, and detecting problems early. It combines clinical care with public health measures such as screenings, vaccinations, and lifestyle counselling.
It is considered the foundational precursor to longevity medicine – the latter having evolved into a specialised branch of preventive medicine.
Simply put: Preventive medicine is healthcare before you actually need healthcare. Instead of waiting for something to break, preventive medicine helps keep you well in the first place. Think maintenance, not emergency repairs – the same way you would treat your cars, motorcycles or mechanical watches.
Preventive medicine focuses on avoiding diseases, while longevity medicine focuses on optimising healthspan.
Officially: Lifestyle medicine is an evidence-based medical speciality that uses interventions such as nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress management, and social connection to prevent, treat, and sometimes reverse chronic disease.
Simply put: Sometimes, the most powerful medicine isn’t found in a pill bottle. Lifestyle medicine is what you eat, how you move, how well you sleep, how you handle stress, and how strong your social or support network is. Simple? Yes. Easy? Not always.
Officially: Medicine 3.0 is an emerging healthcare model focused on proactive, personalised prevention and the optimisation of healthspan. Popularised by physicians such as Dr. Peter Attia, it shifts medicine away from reactive disease treatment towards early intervention targeting the biological drivers of ageing and chronic illness.
It is unlike Medicine 2.0 (our current healthcare system), which excels at treating infections and trauma after they occur.
Simply put: Medicine 3.0 is healthcare for the future. Instead of waiting until you’re sick to step in, it focuses on keeping you healthy in the first place. Think early screenings, personalised health data, better nutrition, exercise, sleep, and catching problems decades before they become serious.
If Medicine 2.0 was about fixing disease, Medicine 3.0 is about slowing ageing, preventing disease, and helping you stay physically and mentally sharp for longer.
Officially: Precision medicine tailors disease prevention and treatment to an individual’s genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach.
Simply put: Precision medicine is personalised healthcare, powered by data and AI. Because your genes, habits, and environment are uniquely yours, your treatment plan should be too.
Officially: Precision geromedicine applies insights from geroscience to target the biological mechanisms of ageing, using personalised strategies to extend healthspan and delay age-related decline.
Simply put: Precision geromedicine is precision medicine, but with ageing in its sights. Instead of treating diseases one by one, it tackles the underlying ageing process itself. Because when it comes to ageing, every body reads from a slightly different script.
Officially: Geroscience studies the biological mechanisms of ageing and how they contribute to chronic disease. Rather than treating conditions like cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, or cardiovascular disease as separate illnesses, geroscience examines ageing itself as the common underlying driver.
Simply put: Geroscience is the science of understanding why we age, and how ageing increases our risk of diseases like cancer, dementia, and heart disease. Instead of tackling illnesses one by one, researchers are asking a bigger question: What if we could slow the ageing process itself?
Officially: Epigenetics is the study of how environmental and behavioural factors influence gene activity without changing the underlying DNA sequence.
Simply put: Your genes may load the gun, but your lifestyle often pulls the trigger. What you eat, how you sleep, and how you manage stress can switch certain genes on or off. Your DNA isn’t destiny; it’s more like a draft.
