Sheba longevity founder says Israel must focus on healthy aging, not longer lifespans
Translated & summarized from Calcalist by baba
Prof. Tzipi Strauss argues that Israel’s real challenge is the nine-plus year gap between lifespan and healthspan. She calls for proactive longevity medicine, simple screening tools and healthier daily habits, saying the goal is to “die healthy.”
The story in 5 lines · by baba
- Israel’s life expectancy is 83.8 years, but healthy life expectancy is 9.3 years shorter.
- Strauss says aging, not isolated diseases, should be treated as the main cause.
- She urges proactive longevity medicine in clinics and health funds.
- Her model includes strength tests, body-composition scans and expanded blood tests.
- She says optimism, resilience and social solidarity also prolong life.
Prof. Tzipi Strauss, a physician, researcher and founder of the Longevity Center at Sheba Medical Center, discussed aging and health in a Re:Israel podcast from Reichman University and Calcalist with Dr. Yossi Maaravi and student Yonatan Heber. She said Israel’s biggest demographic and economic challenge is not how long people live, but the nearly 10-year gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy.
According to Strauss, Israelis live longer, but many older adults spend roughly a decade in pain, chronic illness and loss of function, which drives heavy costs for the state and the health system. She said medicine still focuses on organs and diseases rather than aging itself, and described the current system as “reactive” 90% of the time. Modern science, she argued, now treats aging as a disease process that begins at the cellular level, including telomere shortening, mitochondrial damage and harmful “zombie cells,” and that targeting aging could help prevent diabetes, Alzheimer’s, hypertension and heart disease together.
Strauss cited Israel’s life expectancy at 83.8 years, among the highest in the OECD, but said healthy life expectancy is 9.3 years shorter. “The goal is not necessarily to live to 120, but to close that gap, to die healthy,” she said, adding that at age 88 a person should still be able to carry a suitcase, play with grandchildren and remember their names.
Her proposed response is a proactive longevity model for public and community medicine, including Israel’s health funds, and a broader national policy inspired by Singapore, where the government actively works to prevent aging-related decline and loneliness. She outlined simple clinic tools such as grip-strength tests, body-composition scans, expanded blood work for vitamin D, B12 and magnesium, and self-rated health questionnaires, plus daily habits like strength training, fasting four hours before sleep, eating protein before carbohydrates, and avoiding supplements without blood tests. Strauss said optimism and resilience are key to long life in Israel, calling mutual support and civil solidarity the country’s “game changer.”
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