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Updated: May 11, 2026

Surveying Low-Cost Methods to Measure Lifespan and Healthspan in Caenorhabditis elegans
Published on: May 18, 2022
Recovery and survival from aging-associated diseases
Igor Akushevich1, Julia Kravchenko, Svetlana Ukraintseva
1Center for Population Health and Aging, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, United States. igor.akushevich@duke.edu
Objectives:
Considering disease incidence to be a main contributor to healthy lifespan of the US elderly population may lead to erroneous conclusions when recovery/long-term remission factors are underestimated. Using two Medicare-based population datasets, we investigated the properties of recovery from eleven age-related diseases.
Methods:
Cohorts of patients who stopped visiting doctors during a five-year follow-up since disease onset were analyzed non-parametrically and using the Cox proportional hazard model resulted in estimated recovery and survival rates and evaluated the health state of recovered individuals by comparing their survival with non-recovered patients and the general population.
Results:
Recovered individuals had lower death rates than non-recovered patients, therefore, patients who stopped visiting doctors are a healthier subcohort. However, they had higher death rates than in general population for all considered diseases, therefore the complete recovery does not occur.
Conclusion:
Properties of recovery/long-term remission among the US population of older adults with chronic diseases were uncovered and evaluated. The results allow for a better quantifiable contribution of age-related diseases to healthy life expectancy and improving forecasts of health and mortality.
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