In A Recent Baboon Study, Researchers Determined That Close Friendships In Adulthood Could Fight Back Against Poorer Health And Lifespan Outcomes Caused By Childhood Adversity
Research has shown that childhood trauma can have lasting impacts during adulthood. For instance, living in poverty or suffering abuse and neglect as a child has been shown to cause poorer health outcomes and shorter lives in adulthood as opposed to individuals who grew up in more stable situations.
Still, Elizabeth Lange, an assistant professor at the State University of New York Oswego, wondered whether there was some way that people who were dealt a challenging hand during childhood could overcome early life adversity.
That’s why she recently teamed up with other scientists to conduct a groundbreaking study, analyzing whether close friendships could help combat the effects of childhood trauma.
“I recently collaborated with statisticians and other biologists to understand whether harsh conditions in early life led to weak social relationships and poor health or if close friendships could develop in adulthood in spite of a tough childhood,” Lange explained.
“We also wondered if having close friends could potentially even make up for a poor early life.”
To determine the answers to these questions, Lange and her team studied a wild baboon population in Kenya. Animal studies are often deployed for hypothesis tests, which can be challenging to study on humans.
Baboons were the suitable human proxy for this research, too, since they have similar social relationships, behavior, physiology, and lifestyle. Past research has also shown that early adversity and social bonds have parallel effects on baboons as they do on humans.
The most critical finding from this study revealed that adult social relationships and early life adversity independently affect survival. In other words, while both of these factors have strong impacts, they are not dependent on each other.
According to Lange, this has been a key question among social scientists.
henk bogaard – stock.adobe.com- illustrative purposes only
“Because one possibility is that the effects of adult social bonds on survival are solely a result of the fact that early life adversity tends to lead to poor social bonds in adulthood and also to poor survival. In that scenario, the two effects are not independent; everything is driven by early life adversity,” she said.
However, this study’s data showed that both impacts do matter. Furthermore, Lange and her team found that solid social bonds can actually compensate for some of the negative impacts of early adversity among baboons.
“If that’s true for humans, too– we don’t know that yet– then interventions early in life and in adulthood could improve human health,” Lange detailed.
For the study, the team analyzed baboons living in the Amboseli ecosystem in Kenya. These primates mature when they are about 4.5 years old, and females live to be approximately 18 years old. Similar to humans, they have also evolved in savannah environments and are adaptable.
The lives of the specific baboons Lange and her team studied have been documented since 1971. So, they were able to access lifespan data for many of the primates and could even track generations of baboons.
The researchers specifically used data collected between 1983 and 2019 to examine six different sources of early life adversity among the baboons.
These sources included experiencing drought within their first year of life, being born into a large social group, having a socially isolated mother, having a low-ranking mother, having a younger sibling born not long after them, and losing their mother while they were still young.
Lange stated that these events are similar to adverse childhood experiences among humans, such as poverty or family trauma.
Then, once the baboons grew up, the team measured their survival and social bonds in adulthood.
The researchers found that early life adversity and adult social relationships had independent effects on survival, and the ability to form adult social bonds was not nearly as influenced by early life adversity as the team had previously thought.
Additionally, the impacts of social bonds on survival were not dependent on whether or not a baboon experienced adversity during childhood.
“This rules out the possibility that being born into a poor environment destines a baboon to both poor social relationships and poor survival,” Lange concluded.
“Our results also suggest that strong social bonds in baboon adulthood can buffer some negative effects of early adversity: friends can make up for a bad start.”
Now, Lange believes these findings could help change human health and survival outcomes if individuals who endured childhood trauma are identified and assisted as they improve social relationships during adulthood.
So, the researchers suggest that future studies should analyze other potential links between survival and early life adversity– for instance, through genetics, immune responses, and physiology.
“Our study also shows that some of our most important human traits– including the importance of social relationships for survival– evolved long ago. Looking to the animals can help us learn about ourselves,” Lange added.
To read the study’s complete findings, which have since been published in Science, visit the link here.
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