Thanks BenLurkin.
Posted on 09/30/2019 9:02:37 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Modern diets and sedentary lifestyles leading to obesity are largely blamed for the disease in modern culture but a new University of Texas study, published in the American Heart Journal , found cholesterol buildup in the arteries of five mummies dating back to 2000 BC.
[S]canning the preserved arteries of ancient mummies revealed that heart disease and high cholesterol have for a long time been part of the human condition.
Although processed high-fat foods leading to high-cholesterol are so often blamed for heart disease today, this new study found signs of the same kind of cholesterol-clogged arteries seen in modern humans, in the arteries of ancient mummies.
Four of the test five mummies came from South America and one had Middle Eastern origins with the youngest being 18 years old at death and the oldest between 55 and 60. The scientists placed catheters in the mummified arteries and Dr Madjid explained that they “send out signals” about tissue components, each of which has its own unique signature. Previously, computed tomography detected arterial calcification which indicates later-stage atherosclerosis but in this new study “near-infrared spectroscopy” was applied which detected cholesterol-rich atherosclerotic plaques in the ancient arteries.
Even in the arteries of the 18-year-old mummy the scientists noted signs of atherosclerosis which suggested heart disease has not only been a human affliction for much of human history, but that other environmental factors cause the disease. So, Dr Madjid, if fast foods didn’t cause heart disease, what on Earth did? The doctor suspects “different triggers” for athersclerosis in the five mummies and rather than today where a lot of folk spend long days “idly and eating junk food”, Dr Madjid suspects the ubiquitous firepits, poorer genes and infections may instead have driven “cholesterol buildup” in the mummies’ arteries
(Excerpt) Read more at ancient-origins.net ...
ping
Hmm, must not have been Egypt, since they tore out the internal organs and put them in jars. Lots of mummies around the world, peat bogs, salt flat burials, freeze dried in the Himalayan mountains. So plenty of areas to study.
Actually, it was mostly Daddies.......
Likely true, but consider also that anyone well-off enough to be mumified several millennia ago probably had lifestyles more similar to the average modern first-world individual than with their lower class contemporaries; IE, sedentary, pampered, and unlikely to miss a meal.
It depends on the definition of mummy. A body can be dried out/mummified by just being subjected to the dry aired climate in Egypt. The practice of mummification is a whole other thing.
Drinking a diet soft drink cancels out the bad in chocolate cake, right?
Life is hard as a mummy. Apparently, they have never found a living specimen
Climate change no doubt, forced them to have to eat food with high fat content.
Four of the test five mummies came from South America and one had Middle Eastern origins with the youngest being 18 years old at death and the oldest between 55 and 60. The scientists placed catheters in the mummified arteries...
Thanks BenLurkin.
They're often found with a coffin fit.
They’ve never met RGB...
Anthropologists have known about this for decades. It started during the neolithic agricultural transition (10K-6Kya). Once people started eating a grain based diet, all sorts of health problems appeared. People became smaller and infant mortality rose. The plus side was that people had many more children than hunter-gatherers.
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