Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78249-1644, USA.
Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
Sci Adv. 2021 Apr 21;7(17). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abf6759. Print 2021 Apr.
Are differences in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activation across the adult life span linked to differences in survival? This question has been the subject of considerable debate. We analyze the link between survival and fecal glucocorticoid (GC) measures in a wild primate population, leveraging an unusually extensive longitudinal dataset of 14,173 GC measurements from 242 adult female baboons over 1634 female years. We document a powerful link between GCs and survival: Females with relatively high current GCs or high lifelong cumulative GCs face an elevated risk of death. A hypothetical female who maintained GCs in the top 90% for her age across adulthood would be expected to lose 5.4 years of life relative to a female who maintained GCs in the bottom 10% for her age. Hence, differences among individuals in HPA axis activity provide valuable prognostic information about disparities in life span.
下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺 (HPA) 轴在整个成年期的激活差异是否与生存差异有关？这个问题一直是相当多争论的主题。我们利用来自 242 只成年雌性狒狒的 14173 个 GC 测量值的异常广泛的纵向数据集，分析了生存与粪便皮质醇（GC）测量值之间的联系，这些数据来自于 1634 只雌性年。我们记录了 GCs 与生存之间的强大联系：当前 GCs 相对较高或终生累积 GCs 较高的女性面临更高的死亡风险。假设一名女性在成年期将 GCs 保持在同龄女性的前 90%，那么她的预期寿命将比将 GCs 保持在同龄女性的后 10%的女性少 5.4 年。因此，个体之间 HPA 轴活动的差异为寿命差异提供了有价值的预后信息。
