This article by Thompson et al. presents the results of a study on urinary cortisol levels in 59 wild chimpanzees from Uganda. Glucocorticoids are produced by the body in response to stressors, but eventually has long-term effects on several of the body's systems associated with aging. This study found that wild chimp cortisol levels varied due to factors such as age, rank (in males), and reproductive state (in females). Most importantly, their findings seem to show that patterns of aging in the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis associated with increased corticoid production appear to be shared between chimps and humans, suggesting that this aspect of aging in humans is not the result of a long lifespan or the modern human environment, but may have come from a common ancestor.
Audrey Tjahjadi
Link to original article:
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/117/15/8424.full.pdf
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