Heart disease found on mummy

During the decades, heart disease is often regarded as a modern disease due to lifestyle changes. But make no mistake about this disease had already existed for thousands of years ago. Evidenced by the findings of heart disease was found in ancient Egyptian mummy who lived 3,500 years ago.

These findings suggest possible risk factors for heart disease not only caused by modern lifestyle alone. As widely known heart disease triggered by smoking, eating lots of salt and sugar or unhealthy foods rich in saturated fats.

But it was the mummy of Pharaoh Merenptah who died at the age of 60 years was found suffering from atherosclerosis, thickening of arterial walls by the buildup of calcium, fat, cholesterol or other substances.

To investigate how many of the ancient Egyptians who suffered heart disease, cardiology team from the U.S. and Egypt examinate 22 mummies stored at the Egyptian National Museum of Antiquities. 16 mummies detected related to the heart and blood vessels. While atherosclerosis is itself clearly visible at 5 mummy.

"To identify the effect, we combine the technology used to make a mummy in ancient Egyptian with sophisticated medical technology to detect signs of atherosclerosis," said Michael Miyamoto, a cardiologist at the University of California at San Diego, as quoted by AOL, Wednesday (18/11/2009).

Ancient Egyptian mummy who suffer the most severe atherosclerosis is Lady Rai who lived until age 30 to 40 years and worked as a nanny Ahmose Queen Nefertiti. Lady Rai was living around 1530 BC or 300 years before the time of Moses.

"Although we do not know whether the cause of death was due to atherosclerosis mummy or not, but these findings suggest that heart disease has been suffered by the ancient Egyptian society," said Gregory Thomas from the University of California.

These results show evidence that atherosclerosis in ancient societies may be due to genetic factors, so it's important to keep the risk factors of heart disease to stay in control.

However, it is important to note is that 16 mummies have identified socioeconomic status is high. Generally worked as a maid in the palace of Pharaoh, or as a priest and pastor. "So it is possible some of them lived with several factors that can cause associated with atherosclerosis," said Miyamoto.