Bowhead whale

Health

Bowhead whale longevity is double that of its cousins

By Juman Hijab

Reading time: minutes

Original date: January 25, 2023  

Updated: March 12, 2023

Enjoying my writing? Consider buying me a coffee ☕️ 🙂

Bowhead whale

bekirevren  Bowhead whale, 3d rendering. Shutterstock.com, Stock ID: 1622542453

Longevity in mammals

Most whales live very long lives when you compare them to other mammals. There is this very cool table showing hundreds of species and their longevity (either in the wild or in captivity). 


More the 80% of the mammalian species whose longevity was recorded did not live past the age of 30 years. In fact, most animal species - mammalian or not - don't live past the age of 30.


The whales have other mammals beat (1). Ninety five percent (95%) of whale species live past the age of 30. If we remove the 2 outliers whale species that live 17 years (pygmy sperm whale) and 211 years (Bowhead whale), the remaining 19 species of whales live from 37 - 114 years (average = 71 years) (1).

Bowhead whales longevity is double its cousins

Whales belong to the order Cetacea which has two suborders, the baleen whales and the toothed whales. Baleen whales are generally much larger, with the Bowhead whales and Blue whales tipping the scales at more than 100 tons.

Even among their cousins, whales have contrasting longevity (1): 

  • Toothed whales live between 17 - 90 years (average age of 59 years)
  • Baleen whales live between 50 - 211 years (average 94 years)

The longest living Baleen whale (Bowhead: 211 years) lives more than twice as long as the longest living Toothed whale (Orca/Killer whale: 90 years).

Bowhead whales are incredibly resistant to cancer

Not only do Bowhead whales have impressive longevity, they also demonstrate high resistance to developing cancer (1, 2, 3). 

It is thought that the whale's general resistance to cancer has to do with several factors including (4 , 56, 7)

  • Its large size: animals that attain a large size have an innate ability to control cancerous change (otherwise, statistically, they would be prone to cancer given the huge number of cells that they have)
  • Ability to withstand hypoxia: the genes that protect animals against hypoxia seem to also protect against cancer
  • positive selection for genes that control insulin signaling. This is also related to animal and human longevity (8)
  • Selection for and duplication of DNA repair genes as well as other molecules, like long-non-coding RNAs

What is the Bowhead whale's secret?

There are several factors that contribute to the Bowhead whale's longevity (1, 2).

Not only are the factors mentioned in the earlier section associated with longevity, but the Bowhead whale throws in a slew of other longevity-promoting elements:

  • living in social groups 
  • adapting to arctic-cold waters
  • keeping lower body temperatures
  • maintaining high levels of red blood cells, myoglobin, liver and immunologic cell health.

Bowhead whales also have a high percentage of specialized lipids (for example, sphingolipids) within their membranes  that are related longevity (9). In fact, Bowhead whales do not get cataracts even though they can live 200 years, whereas  rats, dogs, and humans do (10). 

Of note, even among its whale cousins, Bowheads seem to have an upper hand. For example, its mean body temperature is lower (33.6 °C or  92.5 °F) versus a mean of 36.7 °C (98.1 °F) for 4 other species of whales (1). 

Scientists have ongoing research on the longevity of Bowhead whales in particular as this whale shows little change in its biome with aging. It also lacks the presence of a chronic inflammatory state with aging. Finally, it has in its repertoire a supreme resistance to cancer development (1). 

References

  1. Lagunas-Rangel FA. Deciphering the whale's secrets to have a long life. Exp Gerontol. 2021 Aug;151:111425. doi: 10.1016/j.exger.2021.111425. Epub 2021 May 26. PMID: 34051285.
  2. Omotoso O, Gladyshev VN, Zhou X. Lifespan Extension in Long-Lived Vertebrates Rooted in Ecological Adaptation. Front Cell Dev Biol. 2021 Oct 18;9:704966. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2021.704966. PMID: 34733838; PMCID: PMC8558438.
  3. Keane M, Semeiks J, Webb AE, Li YI, Quesada V, Craig T, Madsen LB, van Dam S, Brawand D, Marques PI, Michalak P, Kang L, Bhak J, Yim HS, Grishin NV, Nielsen NH, Heide-Jørgensen MP, Oziolor EM, Matson CW, Church GM, Stuart GW, Patton JC, George JC, Suydam R, Larsen K, López-Otín C, O'Connell MJ, Bickham JW, Thomsen B, de Magalhães JP. Insights into the evolution of longevity from the bowhead whale genome. Cell Rep. 2015 Jan 6;10(1):112-22. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2014.12.008. PMID: 25565328; PMCID: PMC4536333.
  4. Schmidt, H., Malik, A., Bicker, A. et al. Hypoxia tolerance, longevity and cancer-resistance in the mole rat Spalax – a liver transcriptomics approach. Sci Rep 7, 14348 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-13905-z
  5. Seluanov A, Gladyshev VN, Vijg J, Gorbunova V. Mechanisms of cancer resistance in long-lived mammals. Nat Rev Cancer. 2018 Jul;18(7):433-441. doi: 10.1038/s41568-018-0004-9. PMID: 29622806; PMCID: PMC6015544.
  6. Trivedi DD, Dalai SK, Bakshi SR. The Mystery of Cancer Resistance: A Revelation Within Nature. J Mol Evol. 2023 Jan 24. doi: 10.1007/s00239-023-10092-6. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36693985.
  7. Jiang JJ, Kong QP. Comparative analysis of long noncoding RNAs in long-lived mammals provides insights into natural cancer-resistance. RNA Biol. 2020 Nov;17(11):1657-1665. doi: 10.1080/15476286.2020.1792116. Epub 2020 Jul 17. PMID: 32635806; PMCID: PMC7567513.
  8. Milman S, Atzmon G, Huffman DM, Wan J, Crandall JP, Cohen P, Barzilai N. Low insulin-like growth factor-1 level predicts survival in humans with exceptional longevity. Aging Cell. 2014 Aug;13(4):769-71. doi: 10.1111/acel.12213. Epub 2014 Mar 12. PMID: 24618355; PMCID: PMC4116456.
  9. Huang X, Withers BR, Dickson RC. Sphingolipids and lifespan regulation. Biochim Biophys Acta. 2014 May;1841(5):657-64. doi: 10.1016/j.bbalip.2013.08.006. Epub 2013 Aug 15. PMID: 23954556; PMCID: PMC3925463.
  10. Borchman D, Stimmelmayr R, George JC. Whales, lifespan, phospholipids, and cataracts. J Lipid Res. 2017 Dec;58(12):2289-2298. doi: 10.1194/jlr.M079368. Epub 2017 Oct 16. PMID: 29038122; PMCID: PMC5711492.

Tags

aging, cold, longevity, temperature, whales


You may also like

Growth proteins: Nature’s way of building and repair

Growth proteins: Nature’s way of building and repair
{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}
>