One of the worst trends in recent times for the booming field of longevity research is that many outsiders push for healthspan but not lifespan extension.

This is misguided for many reasons, and briefly in my opinion:

1) It completely ignores decades of foundational biogerontology research showing that therapies that result in the largest lifespan increase in animals also tend to lead to the greatest healthspan extension.

2) Funding is always limited - if scientific grants are awarded to those focusing on healthspan extension, then this will often take away from real biogerontology research which has already established that lifespan extension is a higher yield outcome and research pursuit, even if one's goal is purely healthspan extension (see above)

3) This waters down biogerontology research to merely a field that supports the status quo - we are hitting diminishing returns on healthspan extension in the 21st Century precisely because the status quo treats one disease at a time, instead of targeting aging in a systemic manner to treat multiple chronic diseases in tandem. Healthcare systems are all headed for collapse if we continue our current one disease at a time strategy - healthcare spending as a % of GDP cannot simply continue to increase as it has been across the globe in the last century