The tree · Window · Happens to the world · Could be decided within 5 to 20 years
The first drug is approved whose purpose is to slow aging, not to treat one disease
The point at which slowing aging becomes prescribable medicine: a treatment a doctor can give for aging itself rather than for one disease. How far it moves the window is a question for the scenario weights, not for this node.
The test: what counts as it having happened
The US Food and Drug Administration or the European Medicines Agency approves a treatment whose labeled indication is slowing aging, extending healthy lifespan, or delaying a composite of age-related diseases.
Settled by: The regulator's approval record and the product label
The odds, by how long I live
| baselineto 2071 ± 8 | moderateto 2080 | strongto 2095 | radicalto 2136 | openno deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60% | 65% | 75% | 90% | 92% |
Each column is a different guess at how long I live, from current trends (baseline) to open-ended. The number is the chance this happens before that deadline, assuming everything it depends on happens first. As of September 8th, 2026.
Why these numbers: Given a regulator has opened the door, a first approval follows within a decade or two more often than not; the gap to certainty is trials that fail on safety in the old.
What this one is worth
Nothing. The headline number does not rest on this step at any remove, so however it turns out, the chance that I live and work off Earth does not change. That is not a judgement that it does not matter. It is what the tree says: this step feeds a tier above the one the headline asks about, or sits beside the equation rather than in it.
What the ledger says about this step
- Forty-one steps had their criteria tightened so that two readers would agree when each has happened, with no number moved for that alone 2026-09-20 The tree itself changed
- Nine steps were added to the tree, seven of them new requirements on the chain, which is most of why the headline fell in this run 2026-09-20 The tree itself changed
The last 3 checks
Once a week the tree is read against the news, node by node, against the test above. Open a line to see what that week held. Every check ever made on this node is on the Radar page.
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2026-11-01 Nothing new
No FDA or EMA approval with an aging indication was found. Loyal's LOY-002 dog drug has had veterinary safety-section acceptance only, which is not a human approval, and the THRIVE Act 2026 is pending legislation.
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2026-10-04 Nothing new
No FDA or EMA approval with an aging or healthspan indication appeared; the only aging-labelled item is a veterinary (dog) drug that cleared an FDA step in April 2026, which does not meet the human-regulator criterion as read here.
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2026-09-19 Nothing new
Loyal's LOY-002 has FDA acceptance of its effectiveness and safety technical sections from before this window, but full approval has not occurred; no FDA or EMA approval for a slowing-aging indication happened in the window.
Revisions
| Date | Field | From | To | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-19 | description | said the approval is what moves the baseline scenario toward the moderate one for everyone | the point at which slowing aging becomes prescribable medicine; how far it moves the window is a question for the scenario weights | Step 27 outside-model review, item 32 (docs/reviews/2026-09-19-rulings.md): an approved label does not establish broad access or a lifespan gain. Description only; no criterion or number change. Decided September 19th, 2026. |
| 2026-09-19 | depends_on | W-regulator-accepts-aging-as-an-indication | W-regulator-accepts-aging-as-an-indication, W-regulator-accepts-a-biological-measure-of-aging-as-a-trial-endpoint | Step 27 outside-model review, item 1 (docs/reviews/2026-09-19-rulings.md): a regulator accepting a biological measure of aging as a primary endpoint is the rung that shortens trials from decades to years, and gates this node beside the indication node. Decided September 19th, 2026. |
Notes
Almost certainly also depends on a positive composite trial; whether that is a hard dependency is for step 7.
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The record itself is data/W-window.toml in the public repository.