title: A cross-sectional study of male and female C57BL/6Nia mice suggests lifespan and healthspan are not necessarily correlated.
abstract: Lifespan provides a discrete metric that is intuitively appealing and the assumption has been that healthspan is extended concomitant with lifespan. Medicine has been more successful at extending life than preserving health during aging. Interventions that extend lifespan in model organisms do not always result in a corresponding increase in healthspan, suggesting that lifespan and healthspan may be uncoupled. To understand how interventions that extend life affect healthspan, we need measures that distinguish between young and old animals. Here we measured age-related changes in healthspan in male and female C57BL/6JNia mice assessed at 4 distinct ages (4 months, 20 months, 28 months and 32 months). Correlations between health parameters and age varied. Some parameters show consistent patterns with age across studies and in both sexes, others changed in one sex only and others showed no significant differences in mice of different ages. Few correlations existed among health assays, suggesting that physiological function in domains we assessed change independently in aging mice. With one exception, health parameters were not significantly associated with an increased probability of premature death. Our results show the need for more robust measures of murine health and suggest a potential disconnect between health and lifespan in mice.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.|The Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX 78245, USA.
authors.forename: Kathleen E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Fischer
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
authors.forename: Jessica M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Hoffman
authors.affiliation: The Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX 78245, USA.|Division of Liberal Arts and Sciences at SUNY Delhi, Delhi, NY 13753, USA.
authors.forename: Lauren B
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Sloane
authors.affiliation: The Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX 78245, USA.
authors.forename: Jonathan A L
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Gelfond
authors.affiliation: The Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX 78245, USA.
authors.forename: Vanessa Y
authors.initials: VY
authors.lastname: Soto
authors.affiliation: The Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX 78245, USA.|Department of Geriatric Medicine, Oklahoma University Health Science Center, Oklahoma City VA Medical Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA.
authors.forename: Arlan G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Richardson
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.|The Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX 78245, USA.
authors.forename: Steven N
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Austad
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D008017:Life Expectancy; D008136:Longevity / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL
keywords: aging; healthspan; lifespan; longevity; physiological function; sex differences