Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are a crucial model for understanding the evolution of human health and longevity. Cardiovascular disease is a major source of mortality during ageing in humans and therefore a key issue for comparative research. Current data indicate that compared to humans, chimpanzees have proatherogenic blood lipid profiles, an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease in humans. However, most work to date on chimpanzee lipids come from laboratory-living populations where lifestyles diverge from a wild context. Here, we examined cardiovascular profiles in chimpanzees living in African sanctuaries, who range semi-free in large forested enclosures, consume a naturalistic diet, and generally experience conditions more similar to a wild chimpanzee lifestyle. We measured blood lipids, body weight and body fat in 75 sanctuary chimpanzees and compared them to publicly available data from laboratory-living chimpanzees from the Primate Aging Database. We found that semi-free-ranging chimpanzees exhibited lower body weight and lower levels of lipids that are risk factors for human cardiovascular disease, and that some of these disparities increased with age. Our findings support the hypothesis that lifestyle can shape health indices in chimpanzees, similar to effects observed across human populations, and contribute to an emerging understanding of human cardiovascular health in an evolutionary context.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Evolution of the primate ageing process’.

黑猩猩（ Pan troglodytes ）是了解人类健康和长寿进化的重要模型。心血管疾病是人类衰老过程中死亡的主要来源，因此是比较研究的关键问题。目前的数据表明，与人类相比，黑猩猩具有促动脉粥样硬化的血脂特征，这是人类心血管疾病的重要危险因素。然而，迄今为止，大多数关于黑猩猩脂质的研究都来自实验室生活的群体，这些群体的生活方式与野生环境不同。在这里，我们检查了生活在非洲保护区的黑猩猩的心血管特征，这些黑猩猩半自由地生活在大型森林围栏中，吃自然主义饮食，并且通常经历与野生黑猩猩生活方式更相似的条件。我们测量了 75 只庇护黑猩猩的血脂、体重和体脂，并将其与灵长类动物衰老数据库中实验室生活的黑猩猩的公开数据进行了比较。我们发现，半自由放养的黑猩猩表现出较低的体重和较低的脂质水平，而这些是人类心血管疾病的危险因素，并且其中一些差异随着年龄的增长而增加。我们的研究结果支持这样的假设：生活方式可以影响黑猩猩的健康指数，类似于在人类群体中观察到的影响，并有助于在进化背景下对人类心血管健康的新认识。

本文是主题“灵长类动物衰老过程的进化”的一部分。