Dr. Michael Miyamoto / UC San Diego
Cheeseburgers, fries, and other modern-day fatty foods often receive the blunt of the blame for atherosclerosis, a heart disease in which cholesterol build-up causes the hardening of arteries. But McDonald's can't be blamed for this case: scientists have found the same heart disease in 3500-year-old mummies.
"Atherosclerosis is ubiquitous among modern day humans and, despite differences in ancient and modern lifestyles, we found that it was rather common in ancient Egyptians of high socioeconomic status," says UC Irvine clinical professor of cardiology Dr. Gregory Thomas, a co-principal investigator on the study published in Journal of the American Medical Association. "The findings suggest that we may have to look beyond modern risk factors to fully understand the disease." [EurekAlert]
The strange collaboration of cardiologists, Egyptologists, and preservation experts investigated 20 mummies housed in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo, Egypt. Simple CT scans were used to take pictures of the entire body. Of those mummies looked at, 16 had intact hearts or arteries, and of those 16, 9 had significant calcification of the arterial pathways. The calcium residue is a sign of atherosclerosis left behind by the mummification process.
After the scans, the Egyptologists identified the age, gender, and occupation of their subjects. The results showed that “the mummies who had died when they were older than 45, 7 of 8 had calcification and thus atherosclerosis while only 2 of 8 of those dying at an earlier age had calcification.” [EurekAlert]
The most ancient case of atherosclerosis was Lady Rai, nursemaid to Queen Ahmose Nefertiri around 1530 BC, 200 years before the time of King Tutankhamun.
"While we do not know whether atherosclerosis caused the demise of any of the mummies in the study, we can confirm that the disease was present in many," Thomas says. [EurekAlert]
Meat likely played a role in the development of the disease, as cattle, duck and goose were not uncommon meals, especially of the upper class of Egypt to which all of the mummies belonged. The findings shows that in order to fully understand the disease, scientists and doctors have a long history to study.
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