Dr. Rhonda Patrick: As we both know, aging is a very complex and heterogeneous process. Many factors are involved. It almost seems impossible to solve.

And yet, I have heard you say something very interesting: “If you can avoid dying within the next 10 to 15 years, you might want to do that because you could live an extra 50 years.”

Dr. Derya Unutmaz: Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Can you explain why you think that? What makes you believe it?

Dr. Derya Unutmaz: First of all, I am very excited to be here. I am a big follower of your podcast. I think it may be the best aging or longevity podcast, so this is a great pleasure.

I have said that quite a few times in the last year or two. It may not even take 10 to 15 years. It might be closer.

The reason is that technology, especially because of AI, is expanding exponentially. Our minds think in linear terms. We think the next 10 years will bring as much progress as the last 10 or 15 years, but that is not what is going to happen. You can think of the next 10 years as bringing more progress than the last century.

Imagine living in the early 1900s and being told that we would have vaccines, that people would no longer get smallpox, or that they would not die of tuberculosis. People would have laughed and said that was not possible. That is the speed we are talking about.

There is something even more important. Because of this acceleration, advances in treating disease will also accelerate dramatically. We will reach a point called longevity escape velocity. The term was coined by Aubrey de Grey, an aging researcher.

I think we will reach a point in the next eight to 10 years where every year you live adds more than a year to your life. Imagine that 10 years from now you develop a cancer that normally is not curable and have only one or two years to live. During that year, a new treatment could cure that cancer and add several years, or perhaps 10 or 15 years, to your life.

We are already starting to see this with GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs, which may add years to the lifespan of people with obesity or chronic conditions. We may also have muscle-generating treatments, which I think will have a tremendous effect on the aging population because muscle loss is a major problem.

All of these advances will add up, and technology and AI will keep accelerating. Ten years from now, the progress made in one year may be like the progress made over 20 years today.

I think that within 15 or at most 20 years, we will be able to reverse the aging process completely. If you are 80 or 90 years old, you could return to the biological state of a 30- or 40-year-old. That could add 50 or 100 years to your lifespan. You could keep doing that and extend life almost indefinitely.

I think this is probably the most critical time in human history, so try not to die during the next 10 years.

A decade ago, if you told someone to be very healthy, they could say, “It will extend my life by only two or three years. I want to live my life, and I do not care about living a few more years in old age.” That was a reasonable position.

That is not the case now. Living one extra year could let you reach a threshold where many diseases can be treated, aging can be reversed, and another decade or 20 years can be added. Once you reach that point, you may gain another 10 years. In my opinion, even every day counts now. That is why I say: do not die.