Mummy study reveals ancient ancestors’ clogged arteries

Ancient hunter-gatherers suffered from clogged arteries too, reveals a study published in The Lancet. The research suggests that the plaque that builds up causing blood clots, heart attacks and strokes is not just a result of an unhealthy lifestyle.

The researchers performed CT scans on 137 mummies from across four continents with four drastically different climates and diets. Every single population studied was found to have artery plaque (atherosclerosis).

Professor Caleb Finch at the University of Southern California Davis School of Gerontology and senior author of the study said: “This is not a disease only of modern circumstances but a basic feature of human ageing in all populations.”

The findings provide a new twist in our understanding of atherosclerotic vascular disease which is the leading cause of death in the developed world. The prevalence of the disease across human history suggests it may have a more basic connection to inflammation and ageing than our modern lifestyle.

Previous research had only looked at atherosclerosis in Egyptian mummies. Unfortunately the ancient Egyptians tended to mummify only royalty or those that had privileged lives meaning the data was not very representative of an average person at that time. This study on the other hand, also examined mummies from cultures that tended to mummify regular people.

Overall, the team found probable or definite atherosclerosis in 34 per cent of the mummies investigated. Calcification of the arteries was more pronounced in the mummies that were older at the time of death. The condition was equally prevalent in mummies identified as male or female.

“We found that heart disease is a serial killer that has been stalking mankind for thousands of years,” said Randall Thompson from Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute who co-led the study.

In the last 100 years, atherosclerotic vascular disease has replaced infectious disease as the leading killer in developed countries. A common assumption is that the rise in the condition is lifestyle-related and that if modern humans could adopt a similar diet to their early ancestors then the disease would be avoided. The results from this study may consequently overturn this theory.

“Our findings seem to cast doubt on that assumption, and at the very least we think they suggest somehow that our understanding of the causes of atherosclerosis is incomplete, and that It might somehow be inherent to the process of human ageing,” said Thompson.