What can lemurs tell us about about longevity?
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After Jonas - one of their captive dwarf lemurs - died at nearly 30 years old,
researchers from Duke University Lemur Center in Durham, NC, decided to look for clues that might
explain his long lifespan.
They reveal what you found - after combing half a century of the Center's medical records - within the Journal of Zoology.
The records covered medical data on numerous dwarf lemurs and three other lemur species. Jonas was considered one of a particularly long-lived clan of fat-tailed dwarf lemurs.
It appears that one with the reasons behind the dwarf lemurs' surprising longevity could be the ability to place their bodies in to a state of suspended animation called torpor.
The data established that the amount of time the animals spend within this standby state is linked to how quickly they age and exactly how long they live.
As a broad rule anyway, the larger the species, the longer it lives. Whales and humans live to 100, lab mice rarely reach their fourth birthday.
Dwarf lemurs are one with the exceptions - this hamster-sized species can live two or three times over other varieties of a similar size.
We also are aware that hibernating lemurs live a decade or so over their nonhibernating cousins.
Hibernating lemurs turn off their thermostat
The researchers discovered that dwarf lemurs can spend nearly half the year in deep hibernation inside wild. In captivity, they often go into semihibernation for 3 months.
But they suggest perhaps the shorter time spent in hibernation in captivity appears to be lengthen the animals' lifespan.
They discovered that hibernating lemurs not merely live longer, additionally, they stay healthier and they are able to have offspring for a while following their nonhibernating relatives have passed that stage.
The researchers discovered that while nonhibernating lemurs can reproduce for 6 years whenever they reach maturity, hibernating lemurs continue to have offspring for 14 years after maturity.
Also, while all of the species they found data on experienced the usual age-related diseases for instance cataracts while they aged, the hibernating ones did actually experience symptoms much later.
When they hibernate, the hibernating lemurs take their bodies on standby and slow everything down. They drop their heartrate from 200 to 8 beats each and every minute and they slow their breathing.
They also turn off their thermostat - so as an alternative to using up metabolic energy to keep up a constant internal temperature, their body allows it to move into and down in keeping with their surroundings.
For most primates, this kind of behavior can be life-threatening. But it generally seems to work for lemurs - they conserve energy through the times when food and water are scarce.
Hibernation may slow oxidative problems for cells
Some scientists have suggested the main reason hibernators stay healthier and live longer is they spend more time snoozing underground, where they're less likely can be found by predators.
"But the belief that we see exactly the same pattern in captivity, where they're shielded from predators, demonstrates that other factors have work," notes co-author Sarah Zehr, a researcher for the Duke Lemur Center.
Another reason, suggest the study, might be that finding myself a state where everything decreases may also slow the oxidative damage in cells that's a natural side-effect of breathing and metabolism.
The researchers hope their findings will help with scouting around for anti-aging genes in humans, especially as lemurs will be more closely linked to us than mice, which might be frequently used as research subjects.
Funds for that study originated in the German Research Foundation, the US National Science Foundation, the Rufford Foundation, the MMBF/Conservation International Primate Action Fund, Primate Conservation, Inc. and also the Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation.
The records covered medical data on numerous dwarf lemurs and three other lemur species. Jonas was considered one of a particularly long-lived clan of fat-tailed dwarf lemurs.
It appears that one with the reasons behind the dwarf lemurs' surprising longevity could be the ability to place their bodies in to a state of suspended animation called torpor.
The data established that the amount of time the animals spend within this standby state is linked to how quickly they age and exactly how long they live.
As a broad rule anyway, the larger the species, the longer it lives. Whales and humans live to 100, lab mice rarely reach their fourth birthday.
Dwarf lemurs are one with the exceptions - this hamster-sized species can live two or three times over other varieties of a similar size.
We also are aware that hibernating lemurs live a decade or so over their nonhibernating cousins.
Hibernating lemurs turn off their thermostat
The researchers discovered that dwarf lemurs can spend nearly half the year in deep hibernation inside wild. In captivity, they often go into semihibernation for 3 months.
But they suggest perhaps the shorter time spent in hibernation in captivity appears to be lengthen the animals' lifespan.
They discovered that hibernating lemurs not merely live longer, additionally, they stay healthier and they are able to have offspring for a while following their nonhibernating relatives have passed that stage.
The researchers discovered that while nonhibernating lemurs can reproduce for 6 years whenever they reach maturity, hibernating lemurs continue to have offspring for 14 years after maturity.
Also, while all of the species they found data on experienced the usual age-related diseases for instance cataracts while they aged, the hibernating ones did actually experience symptoms much later.
When they hibernate, the hibernating lemurs take their bodies on standby and slow everything down. They drop their heartrate from 200 to 8 beats each and every minute and they slow their breathing.
They also turn off their thermostat - so as an alternative to using up metabolic energy to keep up a constant internal temperature, their body allows it to move into and down in keeping with their surroundings.
For most primates, this kind of behavior can be life-threatening. But it generally seems to work for lemurs - they conserve energy through the times when food and water are scarce.
Hibernation may slow oxidative problems for cells
Some scientists have suggested the main reason hibernators stay healthier and live longer is they spend more time snoozing underground, where they're less likely can be found by predators.
"But the belief that we see exactly the same pattern in captivity, where they're shielded from predators, demonstrates that other factors have work," notes co-author Sarah Zehr, a researcher for the Duke Lemur Center.
Another reason, suggest the study, might be that finding myself a state where everything decreases may also slow the oxidative damage in cells that's a natural side-effect of breathing and metabolism.
The researchers hope their findings will help with scouting around for anti-aging genes in humans, especially as lemurs will be more closely linked to us than mice, which might be frequently used as research subjects.
Funds for that study originated in the German Research Foundation, the US National Science Foundation, the Rufford Foundation, the MMBF/Conservation International Primate Action Fund, Primate Conservation, Inc. and also the Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation.
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