We Measure IQ. We Measure EQ. Are We Missing the Number That Matters Most?

By Maddy Dychtwald

We have a number for how smart you are. We have a number for how well you read a room. But we don’t have a number for something that may shape the final decades of your life more than either:

How well do you understand—and act on—what keeps you healthy as you age?

I have started calling this Healthspan Intelligence.

And I think it’s time we started paying attention to it.

For the last century, we have been remarkably successful at extending lifespan. We added years to life. But we have been far less successful at adding health to those years. Researchers affiliated with Mayo Clinic recently measured the gap between lifespan and healthspan across 183 countries. Globally, that gap has grown to 9.6 years—a 13 percent increase since 2000. The United States has the widest gap in the world: 12.4 years. More than a decade, on average, spent living with disease or disability rather than full health and vitality.

For women, the story is even more troubling.

Women live longer than men, yet globally their healthspan-lifespan gap is about 2.4 years wider. In the U.S., women now spend an average of 13.7 years in that gap.

Think about that.

We have succeeded at helping women live longer without succeeding nearly enough at helping them live healthier, more vital, longer lives.

That is the longevity challenge of our time.

And it’s why I believe we need a new kind of intelligence.

Healthspan Intelligence

Scientists conservatively estimate that genetics accounts for only about a quarter of the variation in human longevity. Our environments, behaviors, medical care, social circumstances and countless other factors help shape the rest.

Which means the way we age is not simply something that happens to us. We participate in it.

That is where Healthspan Intelligence comes in.

It’s not how much health information you know. Most of us already know we should exercise, eat well and get enough sleep. It’s whether you know which actions matter most for you—and whether you turn that knowledge into behavior.

Because information without action isn’t intelligence. It’s trivia.

We’ve already seen how quickly health behavior can change when knowledge, tools and motivation align.

Consider GLP-1 medications. In May 2024, about one in eight American adults reported having tried one. By late 2025, that had risen to nearly one in five.

Whatever your view of these medications, the larger lesson fascinates me:

Health behavior isn’t fixed.

Entire populations can change surprisingly quickly when science, motivation and accessible tools converge.

Now consider something far less futuristic: muscle.

Muscle mass begins declining surprisingly early and the losses accelerate later in life. Yet many of us don’t pay much attention because the bathroom scale can’t tell us what we’re losing.

But strength may tell us far more about how well we are aging.

A recent study of more than 5,400 women ages 63 to 99 found that those with the strongest grip had a 33 percent lower adjusted risk of death than those with the weakest grip.

Not the thinnest women.

The strongest ones.

That is Healthspan Intelligence in action: knowing that maintaining strength isn’t about looking fit. It’s an investment in your future independence, resilience and longevity.

And here is the part I feel most strongly about.

Healthspan Intelligence is not another lecture about willpower.

If American women are spending nearly 14 years living with disease or disability, we cannot simply tell them to try harder.

We need better research on women’s bodies and brains. Better prevention. Better health education. Better tools. Better environments. And healthcare systems designed not merely to treat disease, but to help people preserve health for as long as possible.

Healthspan Intelligence is both personal and societal.

Individuals need it. Doctors need to teach it. Employers need to support it. Schools should introduce it. And policymakers should understand it.

Because perhaps the most important measure of a longevity society isn’t simply how long its people live.

It’s how they live better longer.

We added the years.

Now comes the harder—and more exciting—work: adding health, strength, purpose and vitality to those years.

Your IQ may have helped you through school.

Your EQ may shape your relationships.

Your Healthspan Intelligence may help determine how you experience the final 20 or 30 years of your life.

So perhaps it’s time we started measuring it.

If you could raise your Healthspan Intelligence in just one area this year—strength, sleep, nutrition, connection, purpose, prevention—where would you start?

 

Sources 

• Healthspan-lifespan gap of 9.6 years globally, 12.4 years in the US, 2.4 years wider for women, and nearly 14 years for US women: Garmany A and Terzic A, Global Healthspan-Lifespan Gaps Among 183 WHO Member States, JAMA Network Open, 2024 (Mayo Clinic). 

• Women as 80 percent of centenarians, roughly 14 years in poor health, and up to 90 percent of healthspan within our control: Maddy Dychtwald, Ageless Aging (Age Wave). 

• About 25 percent of lifespan attributable to genes and roughly 75 percent to environment and lifestyle: Danish twin studies (McGue et al.; Herskind et al.), the widely accepted consensus estimate. 

• GLP-1 use rising from about 12 percent of adults in May 2024 to about 18 percent, and higher among women: KFF Health Tracking Polls (2024 and 2025). 

• Muscle loss of about 6 percent per decade after midlife, and strongest women showing a 33 percent lower mortality risk: sarcopenia research reviews and a 2026 grip-strength and mortality study reported by Medical News Today.