About

Michael Gurven's research is informed by human behavioral ecology and life history theory, which seek to explain variation in behavior and physiological systems as adaptive solutions to the competing demands of growth, development, maintenance, and reproduction. His research focuses primarily on the biodemography of human lifespan and aging, with a secondary focus on child development, intergenerational transfers, and familial organization. Additionally, he studies social and economic behavior among foragers and forager-farmers. Gurven is interested in both ultimate and proximate explanations for the diversity of pro-social behaviors observed in small-scale, traditional populations as well as in large-scale modern societies. These research interests have culminated in the Tsimane Life History and Health Project, which has been funded by NIH/NIA and NSF since 2002. He has conducted fieldwork with two South American indigenous populations, the Ache of Paraguay and the Tsimane of Bolivia.

Research topics

• Biology
• Medicine
• Sociology
• Psychology
• Ecology
• Social psychology
• Demography
• Endocrinology
• Political Science
• Mathematics
• Gerontology
• Biochemistry
• Evolutionary biology
• Statistics
• Law
• Geography
• Criminology
• Immunology
• Applied mathematics
• Management
• Environmental health
• Physical medicine and rehabilitation
• Chromatography
• Chemistry

Selected publications

• Development and assessment of tailored illustrations to enhance community understandings of genetics topics

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2026-03-19

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Objectives Effective communication about genetics concepts is essential for collaborative anthropological genetics research. However, communication can be challenging because many ideas are abstract and may be especially unfamiliar to communities with limited access to formal education. Indeed, there are no widely adopted models for communicating such information, nor a clear understanding of the social factors that may shape participant engagement. Here, we conducted a qualitative and quantitative, community-driven study to understand how illustrations can be useful to support concept sharing with two Indigenous groups—the Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia and the Turkana of Kenya. Methods We used a two phase approach to create and evaluate how illustrations can bolster communication about genetics concepts. First, we created images illustrating answers to frequently asked questions about genetics, iteratively updating the illustrations based on participant feedback. Second, we conducted 92 interviews to evaluate the finalized illustrations’ effectiveness. Finally, we analyzed the interview data using thematic analyses, multivariable modeling, and multiple correspondence analyses to identify patterns in participant understanding and feedback, including age, sex, market integration, and schooling. Results Participants reported high interest in genetics research (92%) and broadly positive perceptions of the illustrations. Familiar, locally-grounded imagery was preferred and associated with greater perceived clarity, while more technical illustrations were more frequently reported as confusing. Quantitative analyses showed strong internal consistency across measures of engagement and understanding, with modest variation by degree of market-integration, schooling, and sex. Discussion Our findings demonstrate that community-specific visualizations, co-developed through iterative feedback, can effectively support engagement with genetics research in participant communities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Built environment is a key driver of cardiometabolic health in two indigenous groups undergoing rapid lifestyle change

  Evolution Medicine and Public Health · 2026-04-22

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Background Globally, subsistence-level societies are experiencing rapid urbanization and concomitant increases in cardiometabolic diseases. Generalized measures to quantify lifestyle transitions will facilitate the identification of the most potent drivers of changing health within and between populations, enabling the identification of vulnerable communities, and aiding in the creation of effective policies to minimize disease. Methods We developed ten scales a priori to quantify unique facets of lifestyle (e.g. urban infrastructure, market integration) from cross-sectional data in two Indigenous, transitioning subsistence groups undergoing rapid change in very different ecological and sociopolitical contexts: Turkana pastoralists of northwest Kenya (n = 3692) and Orang Asli mixed subsistence practitioners of Peninsular Malaysia (n = 1119). We tested the extent to which these lifestyle scales predicted 16 measures of cardiometabolic health in each group. We also used factor analysis to decompose lifestyle data post hoc into salient axes, sensitivity analyses to identify the most important drivers of health, and sex-stratified analyses to investigate whether facets of lifestyle differentially impacted cardiometabolic health among males and females. Results Cardiometabolic health was best predicted by measures that quantified urban infrastructure and market-derived material wealth compared to metrics encompassing diet, mobility, or acculturation, and these results were highly consistent across Turkana and Orang Asli and across sexes. Factor analysis results were also highly consistent between the two groups, revealing that lifestyle variation decomposes into two distinct axes–representing the built environment and diet–which change at different paces and have different relationships with health. Conclusion Our analyses revealed surprising generalizability: in both the Turkana and Orang Asli, measures of local infrastructure and built environment better predicted cardiometabolic health than other facets of lifestyle that are seemingly more proximate to health, such as diet. We hypothesize that this is because the built environment impacts unmeasured proximate drivers like physical activity and broader access to market goods, and because it serves as a proxy duration of market integration. Our results support the usage of relatively simple and easy to characterize features of the built environment as a cross-cultural tool in the investigation of lifestyle impacts on cardiometabolic health.

  PublisherDOI

• Divergent Biological Consequences of APOE Isoforms Across Industrialized and Non-Industrial Environments

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2026-02-26

  articleOpen access

  Abstract The apolipoprotein ε4 (APOE ε4) isoform directly alters cholesterol and immune biology and is associated with an increased risk of neurodegenerative and cardiometabolic disease in industrialized settings; nevertheless, APOE ε4—which is ancestral in humans—has persisted over evolutionary time. One potential explanation is that the costs and benefits of APOE ε4 were significantly different in the environments in which humans evolved compared to those we experience today. In support, previous work has suggested that living in a high pathogen environment, engaging in high levels of physical activity, or eating a low fat diet can dampen the detrimental effects of APOE ε4, and has revealed positive effects for fertility. However, direct tests of whether APOE isoforms are associated with different biological outcomes in non-industrial versus industrialized contexts are lacking. Working with the Turkana of Kenya and the Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia—two Indigenous groups in which individuals of shared ancestry span a continuum of subsistence, non-industrial to urban, industrialized lifestyles—we investigated how APOE genotypes impact cholesterol, immunological, and reproductive traits and tested for genotype x environment (GxE) interactions. First, we confirmed established genotype effects across lifestyles, showing that more APOE ε4 alleles are associated with higher total cholesterol, higher LDL cholesterol, and lower HDL cholesterol. Second, we tested for lifestyle interactions, finding lifestyle-dependent effects of genotype on innate immune biomarkers in the Orang Asli but not Turkana. Finally, we show that more APOE ε4 alleles are correlated with an extended reproductive lifespan, however this effect is relatively weak, is not consistent across populations, and does not correspond with a higher reproductive output. Together, our study provides evidence that industrialized environments can modify the biology of APOE ε4; however, we find that APOE ε4 is not universally beneficial in non-industrial contexts, highlighting the role of local environmental variation in determining its specific costs and benefits.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Female reproductive status and ecological conditions impact the magnitude of sex differences in human immune status across the lifespan

  Research Square · 2026-05-18

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Author response for "Inflammaging is minimal among forager-horticulturalists in the Bolivian Amazon"

  2025-04-28

  peer-review
  PublisherDOI

• Physical activity mediates age differences in cognition among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists

  The Journals of Gerontology Series A · 2025-07-23

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: The Tsimane and Moseten of the Bolivian Amazon are highly physically active and exhibit low rates of cognitive impairment and brain atrophy. METHODS: We use structural equation modelling to examine how their physical activity levels mediate the relationship between (1) age and cognition, and (2) age and cognition via brain volume (BV). RESULTS: Tsimane males (n = 305, mean ± SD age = 59.94 ± 9.68) and Tsimane females (n = 265, mean ± SD age = 59.28 ± 9.79) exhibit significantly higher levels of physical activity than Moseten males (n = 106, mean ± SD age = 58.15 ± 9.93) and Moseten females (n = 96, mean ± SD age = 56.63 ± 9.69). Physical activity significantly mediates the relationship between age and cognition in Tsimane males (indirect effect estimate ݼ = -0.01, P < .01) and Tsimane females (indirect effect estimate ݼ = -0.04, P = .01), but not in Moseten males or females. CONCLUSIONS: Among Tsimane males, who are more physically active than Tsimane females, the association between age and cognition via BV is significantly mediated by physical activity. Among Tsimane females, mediation occurs directly via physical activity, bypassing BV. These results suggest that mechanisms of cognitive differences across ages differ by sex and population. Studying the relationship between brain atrophy and lifestyle in nonindustrialized populations elucidates biological and environmental correlates of brain health.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Arterial Stiffness in Heart‐Healthy Indigenous Tsimane Forager‐Horticulturalists

  Journal of the American Heart Association · 2025-07-14

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  BACKGROUND: Little is known about arterial stiffness in rural subsistence populations that experience few cardiovascular risk factors. We conducted a cross-sectional study comparing 3 arterial stiffness metrics among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists with 2 representative US cohorts. METHODS: Arterial elasticity (the inverse of stiffness) markers C1 (large artery elasticity) and C2 (small artery elasticity) were measured using a tonometry device among 490 Tsimane adults (mean age, 51.2±10.1 years; 55% women), and compared with 6294 multiethnic US adults (mean age, 62.0±10.2 years; 52% women) from MESA (Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis). Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity was assessed using the foot-to-foot method in a smaller Tsimane sample (n=94) and compared with 3086 predominantly White US adults (mean age, 46.1±8.7 years; 54% women) from the FHS Gen3 (Framingham Heart Study Third Generation). RESULTS: Tsimane participants exhibited superior arterial health compared with US cohorts, with higher elasticity (C1/C2) and lower stiffness (carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity). Their C1 (mean 22.8±12.2 mL/mm Hg×10) and C2 (mean 7.5±4.0 mL/mm Hg×100) were 47.3% and 35.7% higher than MESA participants by age 40 years, respectively, and differences remained sustained throughout adulthood. Compared with participants in FHS Gen3, the carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity in Tsimane participants (mean 6.2±1.2 m/s) was 33.9% lower and showed a minimal age-related increase, with carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity only higher by age 70+ (β=1.74±0.38; reference <40 years). Tsimane participants with ≥2 comorbidities (hypertension, obesity, and diabetes) had ≈25% higher arterial elasticity than healthy Americans with no comorbidities. CONCLUSIONS: Tsimane forager-farmers of the Bolivian Amazon demonstrate substantially lower arterial stiffness throughout adulthood than more urbanized and sedentary populations, and the differences are only partially explained by conventional cardiometabolic risk factors.

  PublisherDOI

• Nonuniversality of inflammaging across human populations

  Nature Aging · 2025-06-30 · 45 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Working across religions, cultures, settings, and development: Protocol for wave 2 data collection with children and parents by the developing belief network

  PLoS ONE · 2025-09-05 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  The Developing Belief Network is a global research collaborative studying religious development in diverse social-cultural settings, with a focus on the intersection of cognitive mechanisms and cultural beliefs and practices in early and middle childhood. The current manuscript describes the study protocol for the network's second wave of data collection, which aims to further explore the development and diversity of religious cognition and behavior using a multi-time point approach. This protocol is designed to investigate three key research questions-how children represent and reason about religious and supernatural agents, how children represent and reason about religion as an aspect of social identity, and how religious and supernatural beliefs are transmitted within and between generations-via a set of eight tasks for children between the ages of 5 and 13 years and a survey completed by their parents/caregivers. This study is being conducted in 41 distinct cultural-religious settings, spanning 16 countries and 12 written languages. In this manuscript, we provide detailed descriptions of all elements of this study protocol, and give a brief overview of the ways in which this protocol has been adapted for use in diverse religious communities. As one example of how this protocol has been implemented outside of the United States, we present Arabic- and English-language study materials for children being raised in one of the following religious traditions in Lebanon: the Druze faith, Maronite Christianity, Orthodox Christianity, Shia Islam, or Sunni Islam. We end with reflections on the challenges of developing and implementing large-scale, multi-site, multi-time point studies of child development; our approach to navigating these challenges; and our suggestions for how future researchers might learn from our experiences and build on the work presented here.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cost-effective solutions for high-throughput enzymatic DNA methylation sequencing

  PLoS Genetics · 2025-05-22 · 8 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Characterizing DNA methylation patterns is important for addressing key questions in evolutionary biology, development, geroscience, and medical genomics. While costs are decreasing, whole-genome DNA methylation profiling remains prohibitively expensive for most population-scale studies, creating a need for cost-effective, reduced representation approaches (i.e., assays that rely on microarrays, enzyme digests, or sequence capture to target a subset of the genome). Most common whole genome and reduced representation techniques rely on bisulfite conversion, which can damage DNA resulting in DNA loss and sequencing biases. Enzymatic methyl sequencing (EM-seq) was recently proposed to overcome these issues, but thorough benchmarking of EM-seq combined with cost-effective, reduced representation strategies is currently lacking. To address this gap, we optimized the Targeted Methylation Sequencing protocol (TMS)-which profiles ~4 million CpG sites-for miniaturization, flexibility, and multispecies use. First, we tested modifications to increase throughput and reduce cost, including increasing multiplexing, decreasing DNA input, and using enzymatic rather than mechanical fragmentation to prepare DNA. Second, we compared our optimized TMS protocol to commonly used techniques, specifically the Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip (n = 55 paired samples) and whole genome bisulfite sequencing (n = 6 paired samples). In both cases, we found strong agreement between technologies (R2 = 0.97 and 0.99, respectively). Third, we tested the optimized TMS protocol in three non-human primate species (rhesus macaques, geladas, and capuchins). We captured a high percentage (mean = 77.1%) of targeted CpG sites and produced methylation level estimates that agreed with those generated from reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (R2 = 0.98). Finally, we confirmed that estimates of 1) epigenetic age and 2) tissue-specific DNA methylation patterns are strongly recapitulated using data generated from TMS versus other technologies. Altogether, our optimized TMS protocol will enable cost-effective, population-scale studies of genome-wide DNA methylation levels across human and non-human primate species.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• The Human Life Course and the Biodemography of Aging

  NIH · $289k · 2015–2015

• Doctoral Dissertation Research: The skeletal biology of porous cranial lesions

  NSF · $31k · 2020–2021

• Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Maternal reproductive trade-offs and the duration of exclusive breastfeeding in a natural fertility population

  NSF · $23k · 2012–2015

• Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Determinants and Consequences of Women's Fertility Preferences and Fertility in a Rapidly Acculturating Population

  NSF · $18k · 2011–2012

• NIH Grant RF1AG054442

  NIH · $8.8M · 2022

Frequent coauthors

• Hillard Kaplan

  251 shared

• Jonathan Stieglitz

  173 shared

• Benjamin C. Trumble

  Arizona State University

  123 shared

• Aaron D. Blackwell

  74 shared

• Paul L. Hooper

  Chapman University

  65 shared

• Christopher von Rueden

  65 shared

• Bret Beheim

  Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

  62 shared

• Thomas S. Kraft

  University of Utah

  49 shared

Labs

• UNM-UCSB Tsimane Health and Life History ProjectPI

Education

• Ph.D., Anthropology

  University of New Mexico

  2000

• Dual B.A., Anthropology, Mathematics

  Pennsylvania State University

  1996