As we live longer, the traditional medical playbook—waiting for a disease to strike before we act—is no longer enough. But what if we stopped measuring health simply by the absence of illness and started tracking our physical and mental functional wellness across a lifetime?

In this episode, Shimona Kanwar, Senior Assistant Editor with TOI speaks to Dr John Beard, former director of Ageing and Life Course at the World Health Organisation (WHO) to explore a revolutionary shift in healthcare: Intrinsic Capacity. Dr Beard breaks down why the conventional disease-centric model is outdated, how five pivotal subdomains — cognitive, locomotive, sensory, psychological, and vitality — define our true biological trajectory, and how emerging technologies and wearable data could soon let us monitor our health pathways years before symptoms ever appear.

Tune in to discover why aging is not a disease, why it is never too late to change your trajectory, and how this new paradigm is set to flip modern medicine on its head.

Before you tune out, hear the nutrition power tip of the week by nutritionist Pooja Makhija (https://www.nourishgenie.com/)

Chapters

00:01 - The Need for a New Aging Paradigm

01:42 - What is Intrinsic Capacity?

02:27 - The Five Subdomains of Intrinsic Capacity

03:58 – The Crosstalk Between These Subdomains

04:47 - Measuring and Scoring Health Trajectories

08:46 - Digital Health, Wearables, and Future Tracking

11:25 - Personalised Medicine & The Indian Context

13:31 - Shifting Geriatric Care: Proactive Trajectory vs Reactive Disease

18:58 - Busting the Biggest Aging Myth, That It’s Too Late For Change

20:23 - The Future of Drug Approvals and Health Promotion