TY - JOUR
T1 - Multi-system physiological dysregulation and ageing in a subsistence population
T2 - Physiological aging in perspective
AU - Kraft, Thomas S.
AU - Stieglitz, Jonathan
AU - Trumble, Benjamin C.
AU - Garcia, Angela R.
AU - Kaplan, Hillard
AU - Gurven, Michael
N1 - Funding Information:
doi.org/10.25349/D9NS4W. Individual-level biomarker data can be shared upon reasonable request. Authors’ contributions. T.S.K. and M.G. conceived the study. T.S.K. wrote the paper, M.G. contributed text and M.G. and J.S. made major revisions. T.S.K. conducted the analyses. H.K., B.C.T., A.R.G., J.S. and M.G. collected the data. B.C.T. and A.R.G. conducted laboratory analyses. All authors contributed ideas and gave final approval for publication. Competing interests. The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Funding. This research was supported by NIH/NIA (grant nos RF1AG054442; R01AG024119), NSF (grant nos BCS0136274, BCS0422690). J.S. acknowledges IAST funding from the French National
PY - 2020/11/1
Y1 - 2020/11/1
N2 - Humans have the longest post-reproductive lifespans and lowest rates of actuarial ageing among primates. Understanding the links between slow actuarial ageing and physiological change is critical for improving the human 'healthspan'. Physiological dysregulation may be a key feature of ageing in industrialized populations with high burdens of chronic 'diseases of civilization', but little is known about age trajectories of physiological condition in subsistence populations with limited access to public health infrastructure. To better characterize human physiological dysregulation, we examined age trajectories of 40 biomarkers spanning the immune (n = 13 biomarkers), cardiometabolic (n = 14), musculoskeletal (n = 6) and other (n = 7) systems among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of the Bolivian Amazon using mixed cross-sectional and longitudinal data (n = 22 115 observations). We characterized age-related changes using a multi-system statistical index of physiological dysregulation (Mahalanobis distance; D m) that increases with age in both humans and other primates. Although individual biomarkers showed varied age profiles, we found a robust increase in age-related dysregulation for Tsimane (β = 0.17-0.18) that was marginally faster than that reported for an industrialized Western sample (β = 0.14-0.16), but slower than that of other non-human primates. We found minimal sex differences in the pace or average level of dysregulation for Tsimane. Our findings highlight some conserved patterns of physiological dysregulation in humans, consistent with the notion that somatic ageing exhibits species-typical patterns, despite cross-cultural variation in environmental exposures, lifestyles and mortality. This article is part of the theme issue 'Evolution of the primate ageing process'.
AB - Humans have the longest post-reproductive lifespans and lowest rates of actuarial ageing among primates. Understanding the links between slow actuarial ageing and physiological change is critical for improving the human 'healthspan'. Physiological dysregulation may be a key feature of ageing in industrialized populations with high burdens of chronic 'diseases of civilization', but little is known about age trajectories of physiological condition in subsistence populations with limited access to public health infrastructure. To better characterize human physiological dysregulation, we examined age trajectories of 40 biomarkers spanning the immune (n = 13 biomarkers), cardiometabolic (n = 14), musculoskeletal (n = 6) and other (n = 7) systems among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of the Bolivian Amazon using mixed cross-sectional and longitudinal data (n = 22 115 observations). We characterized age-related changes using a multi-system statistical index of physiological dysregulation (Mahalanobis distance; D m) that increases with age in both humans and other primates. Although individual biomarkers showed varied age profiles, we found a robust increase in age-related dysregulation for Tsimane (β = 0.17-0.18) that was marginally faster than that reported for an industrialized Western sample (β = 0.14-0.16), but slower than that of other non-human primates. We found minimal sex differences in the pace or average level of dysregulation for Tsimane. Our findings highlight some conserved patterns of physiological dysregulation in humans, consistent with the notion that somatic ageing exhibits species-typical patterns, despite cross-cultural variation in environmental exposures, lifestyles and mortality. This article is part of the theme issue 'Evolution of the primate ageing process'.
KW - Tsimane
KW - ageing
KW - longevity
KW - physiological dysregulation
KW - subsistence
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85091266202&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1098/rstb.2019.0610rstb20190610
DO - 10.1098/rstb.2019.0610rstb20190610
M3 - Article
C2 - 32951553
AN - SCOPUS:85091266202
VL - 375
JO - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
JF - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
SN - 0800-4622
IS - 1811
M1 - 20190610
ER -