What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger? Examining Relationships Between Early-Life Stress, Later-Life Inflammation and Mortality Risk in Skeletal Remains.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

This paper explores conflicting perspectives on the adaptive significance of phenotypic plasticity during fetal and early postnatal development and the impact that stressors experienced during this critical early-life period have on later-life morbidity and mortality risk.

Methods

The sample (n = 216) comprised archeologically-recovered human skeletons. A geometric morphometric (GM) method was employed to evaluate first permanent molar (M1) fluctuating asymmetry (FA) and provide a proxy for early-life stress. Shifts in later-life physiology were inferred through two inflammatory lesions: periosteal new bone formation (PNBF) and periodontal disease (PD). To explore mortality risk, age-at-death was estimated through dental development for skeletally immature individ

SUBMITTER: Wigley BR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11795231 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature