Mummies show evidence of heart disease, study finds
LONDON — Even without modern- day temptations like fast food or cigarettes, people had clogged arteries some 4,000 years ago, according to the biggest- ever hunt for the condition in mummies.
Researchers say that suggests heart disease may be more a natural part of human aging rather than being directly tied to contemporary risk factors like smoking, eating fatty foods and not exercising.
CT scans of 137 mummies showed evidence of atherosclerosis, or hardened arteries, in one- third of those examined, including those from ancient people believed to have healthy lifestyles. Atherosclerosis causes heart attacks and strokes. More than half of the mummies were from Egypt while the rest were from Peru, southwest America and the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. The mummies were from about 3800 B. C. to 1900 A. D.
“Heart disease has been stalking mankind for over 4,000 years all over the globe,” said Dr. Randall Thompson, a cardiologist at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City and the paper’s lead author.
The mummies with clogged arteries were older at the time of their death, around 43 versus 32 for those without the condition. In most cases, scientists couldn’t say whether the heart disease killed them.
The study results were announced Sunday at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology in San Francisco and simultaneously published online in the journal Lancet.
Thompson said he was surprised to see hardened arteries even in people like the ancient
People should feel less guilty about getting heart disease in modern times.
DR. RANDALL THOMPSON CARDIOLOGIST, STUDY’S LEAD AUTHOR
Aleutians who were presumed to have a healthy lifestyle as hunter- gatherers.
“I think it’s fair to say people should feel less guilty about getting heart disease in modern times,” he said. “We may have oversold the idea that a healthy lifestyle can completely eliminate your risk.”
Thompson said there could be unknown factors that contributed to the mummies’ narrowed arteries. He said the Ancestral Puebloans who lived in underground caves in modern- day Colorado and Utah, used fire for heat and cooking which produced a lot of smoke.
“They were breathing in a lot of smoke and that could have had the same effect as cigarettes,” he said.
Previous studies have found evidence of heart disease in Egyptian mummies, but the Lancet paper is the largest survey so far and the first to include mummies elsewhere in the world.
Dr. Frank Ruehli of the University of Zurich, who runs the Swiss Mummy Project, said it was clear atherosclerosis was notably present in antiquity and agreed there might be a genetic predisposition to the disease.
“Humans seem to have a particular vulnerability ( to heart disease) and it will be interesting to see what genes are involved,” he said.