The tree · Window · Happens to the world · Plays out over the whole window
A treatment is shown in a large trial to cut the death rate of older adults by at least a quarter
The result that would make the moderate scenario (a window around 2080) the expected case rather than a hope: a therapy that reduces all-cause mortality in people over sixty-five by a quarter or more over the trial period. Nothing approved has shown this over five years in the general older population; statins and blood pressure drugs move deaths by smaller amounts or over shorter follow-up (a blood-pressure trial in the over-80s cut all-cause mortality by a fifth over a median of under two years).
The test: what counts as it having happened
A randomized, placebo-controlled trial in adults aged sixty-five or over, not restricted to people with one named disease, followed for at least five years, reports a statistically significant fall of twenty-five percent or more in deaths from any cause in the treated group, published in a peer-reviewed journal and not later retracted.
Settled by: The trial's peer-reviewed primary publication
The odds, by how long I live
| baselineto 2071 ± 8 | moderateto 2080 | strongto 2095 | radicalto 2136 | openno deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25% | 30% | 45% | 75% | 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 19th, 2026.
Why these numbers: A quarter off all deaths in the general over-65 population over five years is beyond anything approved; one in four by 2071 reflects that reprogramming and combination therapies are real but unproven in humans, and the no-deadline column is a does-it-ever-happen question, which both outside reviewers put far higher than the first estimate.
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
- A therapy cutting the death rate of older adults by a quarter was raised in the long windows, where both reviewers said it was too low 2026-09-20 Changed my mind
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 qualifying placebo-controlled trial reporting a 25 percent all-cause mortality fall in general older adults was found; longevity trials such as VITAL-H and SHARP are still under way.
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2026-10-04 Nothing new
No placebo-controlled trial in unselected older adults reporting a 25 percent or greater all-cause mortality cut appeared; search returned only older observational and nursing-intervention studies.
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2026-09-19 Nothing new
No randomized trial in adults 65 and over with five or more years of follow-up reporting a 25 percent or greater cut in all-cause mortality was found; current rapamycin and senolytic trials measure healthspan biomarkers over shorter periods, not mortality.
Revisions
| Date | Field | From | To | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-19 | resolution | no requirement that the result be statistically significant, and no restriction on who is enrolled | statistically significant, in a population not restricted to people with one named disease | Step 27 outside-model review, item 33 (docs/reviews/2026-09-19-rulings.md): as written a trial in a single high-risk disease group would have counted. Decided September 19th, 2026. |
| 2026-09-19 | description | nothing yet approved comes close | nothing approved has shown this over five years in the general older population, with the HYVET result noted | Step 27 outside-model review, item 33: HYVET cut all-cause mortality 21 percent in people over 80 over a median of 1.8 years, so the earlier sentence overstated. Decided September 19th, 2026. |
| 2026-09-19 | probability | 0.20 / 0.25 / 0.35 / 0.60 / 0.70 | 0.25 / 0.30 / 0.45 / 0.75 / 0.92 | Step 27 outside-model review, items 8 and 34 (docs/reviews/2026-09-19-rulings.md): both reviewers said the long windows were too low; priced for the item 33 wording. Decided September 19th, 2026. |
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The record itself is data/W-window.toml in the public repository.