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  • Urine test identifies three biomarkers for accurate prostate cancer detection

    Urine test identifies three biomarkers for accurate prostate cancer detection

    Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital and four other institutions have devised a novel method to test for prostate cancer using biomarkers present in urine, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health. This approach could significantly reduce the need for invasive, often painful biopsies, they say.

    By analyzing urine samples from prostate cancer patients before and after prostate-removal surgery, as well as from healthy individuals, researchers identified a panel of three biomarkers – TTC3, H4C5 and EPCAM – that robustly detected the presence of prostate cancer. These biomarkers were detectable in patients prior to surgery but were nearly absent post-surgery, confirming that they originated in prostate tissue.

    Researchers tested the three-biomarker panel in a development and validation group. The test had an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.92 (1.0 is a perfect performance). It accurately identified prostate cancer 91% of the time and accurately ruled out people without prostate cancer 84% of the time in the validation study. It also determined that the panel could better than PCA3 distinguish patients with prostate cancer from those with BPH.

    The panel maintained diagnostic accuracy in 78.6% (development study) and 85.7% (validation study) of prostate-specific antigen (PSA)-negative prostate cancer cases and distinguished prostate cancer from benign prostate conditions with an AUC of 0.89. These results were published Sept. 2 in eBioMedicine.

    TTC3 (tetratricopeptide repeat domain 3) plays a role in asymmetric cell division in cancer cells, H4C5 (H4 clustered histone 5) plays a role in modulating the structure of chromatin (a complex of DNA and proteins found in cells), and EPCAM (epithelial cell adhesion molecule) is a protein highly overexpressed in many human cancers that originate in the epithelial tissue lining the surface of organs and structures throughout the body.

    Prostate cancer, one of the leading causes of death in men in the United States, is typically detected by blood tests to measure PSA, a protein produced by cancerous and noncancerous tissue in the prostate. In most men, a PSA level above 4.0 nanograms per milliliter is considered abnormal and may result in a recommendation for prostate biopsy, in which multiple samples of tissue are collected through small needles.

    However, the PSA test is not very specific, meaning prostate biopsies are often needed to confirm a diagnosis of cancer, says senior study author Ranjan Perera, Ph.D., director of the Center for RNA Biology at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, and a professor of oncology and neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In many cases, these biopsies are negative and can result in unintended complications, Perera says. PSA tests also can lead to unnecessary treatment for very low-grade prostate cancers that are very unlikely to grow and spread over a short period of time.

    “This new biomarker panel offers a promising, sensitive and specific, noninvasive diagnostic test for prostate cancer,” says Perera. “It has the potential to accurately detect prostate cancer, reduce unnecessary biopsies, improve diagnostic accuracy in PSA-negative patients, and serve as the foundation for both laboratory-developed and in vitro diagnostic assays.”

    The panel was found to be able to detect prostate cancer even when PSA was in the normal range and could distinguish prostate cancer from conditions like prostatitis (inflammation of the prostate) and an enlarged prostate, a condition known as benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).

    There is a real need for non-PSA-based biomarkers for prostate cancer, and urine is quite easy to collect in the clinic. Most urologists feel that an accurate urinary biomarker would be a valuable addition to our current diagnostic armamentarium.”


    Christian Pavlovich, M.D., study co-author, the Bernard L. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Urologic Oncology at Johns Hopkins and program director for the Prostate Cancer Active Surveillance Program

    During the study, investigators studied biomarkers in urine samples from healthy individuals as well as from patients with biopsy-proven prostate cancer undergoing prostate-removal surgeries at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center or AdventHealth Global Robotics Institute in Celebration, Florida. They studied 341 urine specimens (107 from healthy individuals, 136 from patients with prostate cancer before surgery and 98 after surgery) during the development of their urine test and an additional 1,055 specimens (162 from healthy individuals, 484 from patients with prostate cancer before surgery and 409 after surgery) to validate the test.

    During the performance evaluation phase of testing, the scientists also studied samples from patients with BPH or prostatitis, and healthy controls, from The Johns Hopkins Hospital from 2022–25.

    Investigators extracted RNA from prostate cells shed in 50-ml urine samples and analyzed them using RNA sequencing and also real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) to study gene expression. They also used immunohistochemistry to study biomarkers in samples from cancerous prostate tissue and healthy adjacent tissue, and statistical analyses to compare biomarkers found in the urine and tissue samples.

    From an initial 815 prostate-specific genes identified in urine from men with prostate cancers, the investigators prioritized the top 50 genes, then the top nine, and from there selected the three top performers: TTC3, H4C5 and EPCAM for further analysis.

    Overall, expression levels of the three biomarkers were significantly higher in urine samples from individuals with prostate cancers than in urine from the healthy controls. The expression of each biomarker diminished to low or undetectable levels in samples taken after surgery. A greater proportion of patients with prostate cancer tested positive for the three biomarkers than for PCA3, another biomarker associated with prostate cancers, in both the development study and the validation study.

    “This test has the potential to help physicians improve diagnostic accuracy of prostate cancer, reducing unnecessary interventions while allowing early treatment for those who need it,” says study co-author Vipul Patel, M.D., director of urologic oncology at AdventHealth Cancer Institute in Celebration, Florida. Patel also is medical director of global robotics for AdventHealth’s Global Robotics Institute, and founder of the International Prostate Cancer Foundation. “On behalf of physicians and patient globally, I advocate for further study and progress for these biomarkers.”

    Investigators are considering how the biomarker panel could be used alone or combined with a PSA test to make a “super PSA,” Perera says. The next steps for the research are to have an independent trial of the test at another institution and to further develop the test for laboratory use in clinical settings, he says. The investigators have filed a patent, and Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures is helping the team to spin off a company.

    The study co-authors were Menglang Yuan, Kandarp Joshi, Yohei Sanada, Bongyong Lee, Rudramani Pokhrel, Alexandra Miller, Ernest K. Amankwah, Ignacio Gonzalez-Gomez, Naren Nimmagadda, Ezra Baraban, Anant Jaiswal and Chetan Bettegowda of Johns Hopkins. Additional co-authors were from Charles University in Prague; the University of Kansas; Orlando Health Medical Group Urology-Winter Park in Orlando, Florida; and AdventHealth Cancer Institute.

    The work was supported by the International Prostate Cancer Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center (NIH grant # P30CA006973), the Bankhead-Coley Cancer Research Program (grant # 24B16) to Perera, and by the Maryland Innovation Initiative Grant to Pavlovich and Perera.

    Bettegowda is a consultant for Haystack Oncology, Privo Technologies and Bionaut Labs. He is a co-founder of OrisDx and Belay Diagnostics.

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  • Challenging the notion of Aedes aegypti as the primary chikungunya virus vector: insights from Kédougou, Southeastern Senegal | BMC Infectious Diseases

    Challenging the notion of Aedes aegypti as the primary chikungunya virus vector: insights from Kédougou, Southeastern Senegal | BMC Infectious Diseases

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  • France seeks arrest of Syria’s Assad

    France seeks arrest of Syria’s Assad


    PARIS:

    French judicial authorities have issued arrest warrants for ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and six other top former officials over the bombardment of a rebel-held city in 2012 that killed two journalists, lawyers said Tuesday.

    Marie Colvin, 56, an American working for The Sunday Times of Britain, and French photographer Remi Ochlik, 28, were killed on February 22, 2012 by the explosion in the eastern city of Homs, which is being investigated by the French judiciary as a potential crime against humanity as well as a war crime. British photographer Paul Conroy, French reporter Edith Bouvier and Syrian translator Wael Omar were wounded in the attack on the informal press centre where they had been working.

    Assad escaped with his family to Russia after being ousted by Islamist rebels at the end of 2024 although his precise whereabouts have not been confirmed. Other than Assad, the warrants notably target his brother Maher al-Assad who was the de facto head of the 4th Syrian armoured division at the time, intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk, and then-army chief of staff Ali Ayoub. AFP

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  • NASA’s Planetary Radar Reveals Peanut Shape of Asteroid 1997 QK1

    NASA’s Planetary Radar Reveals Peanut Shape of Asteroid 1997 QK1

    Asteroid 1997 QK1 is shown to be an elongated, peanut-shaped near-Earth object in this series of 28 radar images obtained by the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone Solar System Radar on Aug. 21, 2025. The asteroid is about 660 feet (200 meters) long and completes one rotation every 4.8 hours. It passed closest to our planet on the day before these observations were made at a distance of about 1.9 million miles (3 million kilometers), or within eight times the distance between Earth and the Moon.

    The 2025 flyby is the closest that 1997 QK1 has approached to Earth in more than 350 years. Prior to the recent Goldstone observations, very little was known about the asteroid.

    These observations resolve surface features down to a resolution of about 25 feet (7.5 meters) and reveal that the object has two rounded lobes that are connected, with one lobe twice the size of the other. Both lobes appear to have concavities that are tens of meters deep. Asteroid 1997 QK1 is likely a “contact binary,” one of dozens of such objects imaged by Goldstone. At least 15% of near-Earth asteroids larger than about 660 feet (200 meters) have a contact binary shape.

    The asteroid is classified as potentially hazardous, but it does not pose a hazard to Earth for the foreseeable future. These Goldstone measurements have greatly reduced the uncertainties in the asteroid’s distance from Earth and in its future motion for many decades.

    The Goldstone Solar System Radar Group is supported by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations Program within the Planetary Defense Coordination Office at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Deep Space Network receives programmatic oversight from Space Communications and Navigation program office within the Space Operations Mission Directorate, also at NASA Headquarters.

    More information about planetary radar and near-Earth objects can be found at:

    https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroid-watch

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  • Bayern Munich’s controversial “loan only” policy caused a divide within the board

    Bayern Munich’s controversial “loan only” policy caused a divide within the board

    Bayern Munich announced that they would only go for loan deals right around the time they had secured the transfer of Luis Díaz from Liverpool. It all but finished off any chance that Bayern would sign anyone to fill in for the team, and a majority of those on the board thought it was a terrible idea as reported by Tz trio Manuel Bonke, Philipp Kessler, and Hanna Raif via twitter account @iMiaSanMia:

    The ‘loan only’ policy was discussed quite controversially at last week’s supervisory board regular meeting. Not everyone on the board was in full agreement with the strict austerity measures pursued by President Herbert Hainer and the two supervisory board members, Uli Hoeneß and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.

    It appears that the three people who pushed for this policy did not consider the implications of having fewer replacements for the swath of departures. Throw in a couple of players yet to make their comebacks from long-term injuries and you have a team that is severely hampered.

    Should Bayern end up underperforming because of the lack of options from the player pool, then the blame pretty much lies on the door of the higher-ups who think that being in the green is better than sporting success. They do realize that sporting success sometimes comes with windfall, right? Apparently, they don’t.

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  • Russia, China toast ever closer ties

    Russia, China toast ever closer ties


    BEIJING:

    Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Tuesday that their countries’ ties were at an “unprecedented level”, during talks in Beijing ahead of a massive military parade.

    Wednesday’s showcase of China’s might has been seized by world leaders as an opportunity to hold rare face-to-face talks, with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un expected to hold summits with both Putin and Xi according to South Korean sources.

    Xi himself has embarked on a flurry of diplomatic meetings this week, including attendance at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the northern city of Tianjin — a forum that China sees as an alternative to Western-dominated international cooperation.

    Meeting Xi on Tuesday, Putin told him “our close communication reflects the strategic nature of Russian-Chinese ties, which are currently at an unprecedented level”, according to a pooled live feed.

    In a nod to cooperation between the two countries during the war, Putin said “we were always together then, and we remain together now”.

    Xi and Putin have also both met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, as Tehran faces the reimposition of European sanctions over its nuclear programme.

    On Tuesday Xi told Pezeshkian China opposed the “use of force to resolve differences”, but said it “supports Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty”.

    The military parade on Wednesday marks 80 years since the end of World War II and will be attended by around two dozen world leaders, including Kim in his first visit to China since 2019.

    Kim is expected to mingle with other world leaders at a gala performance, as well as meet Xi and Putin for talks, Lee Seong-kweun, a South Korean member of parliament briefed by Seoul’s spy agency, told reporters.

    Putin also met with Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico on Tuesday, praising his country’s “independent foreign policy”.

    Fico has irked European leaders by criticising the bloc’s support for Ukraine and pushing back against efforts to cut energy imports from Russia. Slovakia is highly reliant on Russian gas.

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  • ESA’s Solar Orbiter Snaps Powerful Coronal Mass Ejection – DIY Photography

    1. ESA’s Solar Orbiter Snaps Powerful Coronal Mass Ejection  DIY Photography
    2. Double trouble: Solar Orbiter traces superfast electrons back to Sun  European Space Agency
    3. Scientists Finally Solve the Mystery of the Sun’s Fastest Particles  SciTechDaily
    4. Solar Orbiter traces space-weather particles back to solar flares and CMEs  The Brighter Side of News
    5. Scientists pinpoint how the Sun unleashes electron storms  Earth.com

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  • China victory day parade live: Xi, Putin and Kim Jong-un appear together as Trump accuses them of conspiring against US | China

    China victory day parade live: Xi, Putin and Kim Jong-un appear together as Trump accuses them of conspiring against US | China

    Xi, Kim, Putin appear together

    The leaders of China, Russia and North Korea have been photographed walking to the parade together. It is a striking image, that has been beamed onto large screens in Beijing.

    Xi Jinping (C) walks alongside Russia’s president Vladimir Putin (centre L) and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un (centre R). Photograph: Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images
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    Key events

    A new photograph has emerged showing former Australian Labor state premier Dan Andrews standing among global leaders before the parade.

    You can spot him in the back right corner, behind Putin, Xi and Kim.

    Former Labor state premier Bob Carr is also reportedly a guest at the parade.

    Critics, including opposition leader Sussan Ley, say the pair risk being used in CCP propaganda.

    But Carr told The Australian his attendance was in recognition of China and Australia’s shared second world war history, arguing that Chinese resistance defended Australia from direct naval assault by Japan.

    Carr led the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney from 2014 to 2019.

    Andrews signed Victoria on to China’s belt and road initiative, before it was vetoed by the Morrison government.

    Leaders pose for a group photo ahead of a military parade in Beijing, China. Photograph: Sergei Bobylev/AP
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  • Scientists Develop Edible “Fat Sponges” From Green Tea and Seaweed

    Scientists Develop Edible “Fat Sponges” From Green Tea and Seaweed

    Current weight-loss treatments like surgery or fat-blocking drugs can be risky, but researchers are testing a gentler alternative. They’ve developed edible, plant-based microbeads that bind to fat in the gut, preventing absorption. Credit: Stock

    Researchers have developed plant-based microbeads that block fat absorption in the gut.

    Current strategies for weight loss, such as gastric bypass surgery or medications that block fat absorption, often come with significant risks or unpleasant side effects. Scientists are now exploring a different option: edible microbeads made from green tea polyphenols, vitamin E, and seaweed. Once swallowed, these beads attach to dietary fats inside the digestive tract. Early studies in rats that were fed high-fat diets suggest this method could provide a safer and more widely available alternative to traditional surgery or drug-based treatments.

    Yue Wu, a graduate student at Sichuan University, is scheduled to present the team’s findings at the ACS Fall 2025 Digital Meeting.

    “Losing weight can help some people prevent long-term health issues like diabetes and heart disease,” says Wu. “Our microbeads work directly in the gut to block fat absorption in a noninvasive and gentle way.”

    The Challenge of Fat Absorption

    Weight gain can be influenced by both genetic and lifestyle factors, one of the most important being diet. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a high-fat diet is defined as one in which 35% or more of daily calories come from fat rather than protein or carbohydrates.

    Some approved drugs, such as orlistat, reduce fat absorption by interfering with the enzymes that break down dietary fats. While effective, orlistat has been linked to serious side effects in certain patients, including damage to the liver and kidneys.

    So, Wu and her colleagues wanted to target the fat absorption process with their weight-loss intervention but do so without negative side effects. “We want to develop something that works with how people normally eat and live,” says Wu.

    Fat Trapping Microbeads
    These plant-based microbeads absorb and trap fat. Credit: Yue Wu

    To get started, the team created tiny plant-based beads that spontaneously form through a series of chemical bonds between the green tea polyphenols and vitamin E. These structures can form chemical tethers to fat droplets and serve as the fat-binding core of the microbeads. The researchers then coated the spheres in a natural polymer derived from seaweed to protect them from the acidic environment of the stomach. Once ingested, the protective polymer coating expands in response to the acidic pH, and the green tea polyphenols and vitamin E compounds bind to and trap partially digested fats in the intestine.

    Integrating Microbeads into Diets

    The microbeads are nearly flavorless, and the researchers foresee them being easily integrated into people’s diets. For example, the microbeads could be made into small tapioca- or boba-sized balls and added to desserts and bubble teas.

    The researchers assessed the microbeads as a weight-loss treatment in rats. They put the animals into three groups (eight rats per group), those which were fed a high-fat diet (60% fats) either with or without microbeads and those which were fed a normal diet (10% fats) for 30 days. Rats fed the high-fat diet and microbeads:

    • Lost 17% of their total body weight, while rats in the other groups didn’t lose weight.
    • Had reduced adipose tissue and less liver damage compared to rats fed the high-fat and normal diets without microbeads.
    • Excreted more fat in their feces compared to rats not given microbeads. The extra fat in the rats’ feces had no apparent ill effects on the animals’ health.

    Additionally, the eight rats on high-fat diets that consumed microbeads showed similar intestinal fat excretion, but without the gastrointestinal side effects the researchers observed with a fourth group of rats they treated with orlistat.

    Wu and her team have started working with a biotechnology company to manufacture the plant-based beads. “All the ingredients are food grade and FDA-approved, and their production can be easily scaled up,” says Yunxiang He, Sichuan University associate professor and co-author on Wu’s presentation.

    They’ve also initiated a human clinical trial in collaboration with the West China Hospital of Sichuan University. “This represents a major step toward clinical translation of our polyphenol-based microbeads, following our foundational results,” says Wu. “We have officially enrolled 26 participants in our investigator-initiated trial, and we anticipate that preliminary data may become available within the next year.”

    Meeting: ACS Fall 2025

    The research was funded by National Key R&D Program of China; the National Excellent Young Scientists Fund; the National Natural Science Foundation of China; the Talents Program of Sichuan Province; the Double First-Class University Plan of Sichuan University; the State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering; the Tianfu Emei Program of Sichuan Province; the Postdoctoral Special Funding of Sichuan Province; the Postdoctoral Funding of Sichuan University; the Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Leather Chemistry and Engineering; and the National Engineering Research Center of Clean Technology in Leather Industry.

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  • People live longer worldwide but not necessarily healthier, study finds

    People live longer worldwide but not necessarily healthier, study finds

    Despite rising life expectancy, a study out of Mayo Clinic reveals widening health gaps shaped by distinct disease patterns, warning that longer lives are not necessarily healthier ones.

    Study: Healthspan-lifespan gap differs in magnitude and disease contribution across world regions. Image Credit: Oleg Troino / Shutterstock

    In a recent study published in the journal Communications Medicine, researchers Armin Garmany and Andre Terzic at the Mayo Clinic in the USA mapped the healthspan-lifespan gap across world regions and identified gap-associated indicators.

    Human life expectancy continues to increase, surpassing previously established longevity ceilings. However, life expectancy gains have not been matched with equivalent healthy longevity gains, leading to a healthspan-lifespan gap, which is the difference between lifespan (the number of years lived) and healthspan (the number of years lived in good health). Mapping the healthspan-lifespan gap is particularly relevant in the context of socioeconomic, geographic, and health inequity.

    About the study

    In the present study, researchers mapped the healthspan-lifespan gap by world regions and identified gap-associated economic, health, and demographic indicators. The analysis covered 183 WHO member states (2000–2019). Life expectancy data were used from the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Health Observatory (GHO) from 2000 to 2019. World regions and states were defined per the WHO classification scheme.

    The healthspan-lifespan gap was estimated as the difference between life expectancy at birth and health-adjusted life expectancy (HALE) at birth. HALE reflects time lived in full health based on disability weights, which the authors shorthand as “years lived free from disease.” GHO estimates of years lived with disability were used to calculate morbidity burden. Mortality burden was estimated as years of life lost per 100,000 persons. Health, demographic, and economic indicators were obtained from the WHO GHO, Global Health Expenditure Database, and United Nations World Population Prospects.

    Demographic indicators included median age, life expectancy, population size, birth rate, population density, death rate, and rate of natural change. Economic indicators were healthcare expenditure per capita and gross domestic product (GDP). Health indicators included noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), injuries, total morbidity burden, and communicable, maternal, perinatal, and nutritional conditions (CMPNs).

    Linear regression was used to examine associations between these indicators and the healthspan-lifespan gap. The authors also employed dimensionality reduction (principal component analysis), unsupervised clustering (k-means), and supervised classification (random forest) to identify disease-burden patterns associated with the gap. A spatial error model was applied to adjust for geographic proximity as a potential confounder. Furthermore, a multivariate model was developed to predict the healthspan-lifespan gap using these indicators. Gap deviation from the multivariate regression estimate was quantified to assess member state performance in each region. Further, regression models were developed to project the healthspan-lifespan gap from actual life expectancy values over the past two decades.

    Findings

    The median life expectancy was 73.7 years across WHO member states. The median lifespan was the lowest in Africa (64.1 years) and the highest in Europe (78.6 years). The average ages were 75.9, 73.9, 72.6, and 70.4 years in the Americas, Eastern Mediterranean, South-east Asia, and Western Pacific, respectively. The median health-adjusted life expectancy (years lived free from disease) was 64.5 years.

    Consistently, the median healthspan was the highest in Europe (68.8 years) and lowest in Africa (55.6 years). It was 62.1 years in the Western Pacific, 63.4 years in South-east Asia, 64 years in the Eastern Mediterranean, and 65.8 years in the Americas. Globally, the median healthspan-lifespan gap was 9.1 years, ranging between 6.5 years in Lesotho and 12.4 years in the United States (US).

    The median healthspan-lifespan gap in Africa (8.3 years) and the Western Pacific (8.4 years) was smaller than in Europe (9.9 years), the Americas (9.6 years), South-east Asia (9.6 years), and the Eastern Mediterranean (9.8 years). The median life expectancy-adjusted healthspan-lifespan gap (LEA-GAP), i.e., the percentage of lifespan compromised by disease, was 12.7%, ranging from 10.5% in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to 15.8% in the US.

    Per region, the median LEA-GAP was 12.4% in Europe, 12.9% in the Americas and Africa, 13.3% in the Eastern Mediterranean, and 11.8% in the Western Pacific. Further, life expectancy, NCD burden, and GDP consistently correlated with the healthspan-lifespan gap. Globally, NCDs accounted for 56% to 90% of the total disease burden, whereas CMPNs and injuries accounted for 3% to 37% and 4% to 18%, respectively.

    NCD contribution to disease burden was the lowest in Africa (68%) and the highest in the Americas (84%). The lowest contribution from CMPNs was noted in Europe (5%), and the highest was observed in Africa (27%). The contribution from injuries was also the lowest in Africa (5%) and the highest in Europe (11%). Over the past two decades, NCDs, injuries, and communicable diseases have shown a mean change of 3%, -0.4%, and -3% in their contribution to the total disease burden, respectively.

    Further, the global median healthspan-lifespan gap increased from 8.4 years to 9.1 years over the past two decades, growing at a median rate of 0.05 years per annum. Africa showed the fastest gap growth rate at ~0.07 years per year, followed by South-East Asia (~0.06), Eastern Mediterranean and Europe (~0.05), Western Pacific (~0.03), and the Americas (~0.03). By 2100, the median healthspan-lifespan gap was projected to increase by 22% worldwide. It was predicted to reach 12.1 years in the Americas and Eastern Mediterranean, 11.7 years in Europe, 11 years in Western Pacific, 10.5 years in South-east Asia, and 10.1 years in Africa by the turn of the next century.

    Sixty-one countries had gaps larger than predicted by life expectancy, GDP, and NCD burden, with Africa over-represented. Fifty-eight had smaller-than-predicted gaps, with Europe over-represented. These patterns persisted after spatial adjustment.

    Unsupervised clustering identified three morbidity patterns with distinct median gaps: Cluster 1 (nutritional, infectious, neonatal, maternal prominence) ~8.3 years, concentrated in Africa; Cluster 2 (sense organ, diabetes, genitourinary prominence) ~9.4 years, spanning multiple regions; Cluster 3 (malignancy, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, neurological prominence) ~10.3 years, concentrated in Europe. Mental and substance use disorders were over-represented across all regions but did not drive regional segregation.

    Conclusions

    The healthspan-lifespan gap was universal, but varied in disease contribution and magnitude across the WHO’s world regions. GDP, life expectancy, and NCD burden consistently correlate with the gap. Africa exhibited a shorter healthspan and lifespan, resulting in a narrower gap. However, Africa exhibited the fastest widening of the gap. The authors caution against global generalization, noting that “identities” of gaps arise from distinct disease-burden patterns. They call for region-informed, disease-pattern-aware solutions to narrow the widening gap.

    The authors also acknowledged limitations, including reliance on HALE estimates derived from disability weights that may vary by setting, and the inability to allocate the gap to specific ages within the lifespan.

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