A New Medical Specialty: Clinical Guidelines and Standards for Practice and Physician Training in Healthspan Optimization
摘要
Geromedicine (GM, previously and still at times also called healthspan medicine or healthy longevity medicine), based on a foundation of geroscience, has potential for transforming healthcare by extending healthspan and delaying, preventing, alleviating, or treating age-related disorders and diseases across the lifespan. Despite its rapid development and growing clinical relevance, GM is not yet regulated or formally recognized as a medical specialty, which represents a gap that should be addressed. Establishing standards, guidelines, and formal training pathways is important for ensuring scientific rigor, patient safety, and the integration of GM into mainstream healthcare systems. Establishing GM as a regulated specialty requires a standardized, evidence-based curriculum covering biological, clinical, and ethical foundations, including competencies in biomarker interpretation, personalized prevention, digital health integration, and knowledge about effects and side effects of gerotherapeutic interventions that possibly could be ready for clinical use in the near future. This framework should be implemented across all levels of medical education from undergraduate to postgraduate and continuing professional development ensuring that both new and senior physicians can obtain accredited qualifications through structured training and examinations. Formal recognition by medical boards, with pathways for fellowship and certification comparable to other disciplines like cardiology or endocrinology, need to be developed. Finally, international harmonization of standards will safeguard quality, enable cross-border practice, and firmly embed the new field of GM into modern healthcare systems.