Humans age slowly, but not uniquely

William Atkins
Saturday, 12 March 2011 00:27

Science - Biology

A new international study is the first to study the aging habits of multiple species of primates. It finds that, even though we think we are unique when it comes to aging, we aren't. Humans age very similarly to chimps, gorillas, and other primates.

 

The article 'Aging in the Natural World: Comparative Data Reveal Similar Mortality Patterns Across Primates' (Science 11 March 2011: Vol. 331 no. 6022 pp. 1325-1328 DOI: 10.1126/science.1201571) was published on March 11, 2011, in the journal Science.

It has been thought that humans age uniquely, and that no other species of primates slowly grow old like we do over a relatively long period of time.

We also thought that humans have the longest life spans of all the different types of primates and that only in humans do we see males living a shorter life than females.

The authors of the study, from the United States, Kenya, and Canada, state in the abstract to their paper: 'Human senescence patterns'”late onset of mortality incre ase, slow mortality acceleration, and exceptional longevity'”are often described as unique in the animal world.'

The researchers study the following seven primate species: (1) capuchin monkeys from Costa Rica, (2) muriqui monkeys from Brazil, (3) chimpanzees from Tanzania, (4) baboons from Kenya, (5) blue monkeys from Kenya, (6) gorillas from Rwanda, and (7) sifaka lemurs from Madagascar.

They compared the risk of dying as humans grow older, and similar data for almost three thousand individuals of these seven primate species.

However, based on their study on wild populations of seven primate species, the U.S. biologists and anthropologists working on this study found that ''¦ contrary to assumptions of human uniqueness, human senescence falls within the primate continuum of aging; the tendency for males to have shorter life spans and higher age-specific mortality than females throughout much of adulthood is a common feature in many, but not all, primates; and the aging profiles of primate species do not reflect phylogenetic position.'

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