The Healing Power of Status

If baboons are anything to go by, high-status males seem to be in better health

A new study has found that high-ranking male baboons recover more quickly from injuries and are less likely to become ill than other males. According to a University of Notre Dame press release, ‘Archie, Jeanne Altmann of Princeton and Susan Alberts of Duke examined health records from the Amboseli Baboon Research Project in Kenya. They found that high rank is associated with faster wound healing. The finding is somewhat surprising, given that top-ranked males also experience high stress, which should suppress immune responses. They also found that social status is a better predictor of wound healing than age’.

“In humans and animals, it has always been a big debate whether the stress of being on top is better or worse than the stress of being on the bottom,” says Archie, lead researcher of the study. “Our results suggest that, while animals in both positions experience stress, several factors that go along with high rank might serve to protect males from the negative effects of stress.”

“The power of this study is in identifying the biological mechanisms that may confer health benefits [on] high-ranking members of society,” says George Gilchrist, program director at the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Division of Biology, which funded the study. “We know that humans have such benefits, but it took meticulous long-term research on baboon society to tease out the specific mechanisms. The question remains of causation: is one a society leader because of stronger immune function or vice versa?”

The researchers examined 27 years of data on naturally occurring illness and injuries in wild male baboons, which is a notably large data set. Although research of health and disease in animals in laboratory settings has been quite extensive, this study is one of the most comprehensive ever conducted on animals in a natural setting.

The research team investigated how differences in age, physical condition, stress, reproductive effort and testosterone levels contribute to status-related differences in immune functions. Previous research found that high testosterone levels and intense reproductive efforts are highest among high-ranking males, and can suppress immune function.

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