According to newly published research results, experts found cholesterol accumulation in the arteries of some 4,000-year-old mummies. This is evidence that the disease appeared much earlier than we ever knew.
Experts at the University of Texas Medical Science Center have just published a remarkable study of five 4,000-year-old mummies from Egypt and South America.
Specifically, Mohammad Madjid, lead author of the study, said experts found cholesterol in the arteries of five mummies (including three men and two women) between the ages of 18 and 60 when they died.
Three of the five ancient mummies are thought to have died from pneumonia, one of whom is thought to have died from kidney failure. The last one died of an unspecified cause. Four of these people live in South America and the other one live in Egypt.
Experts use a imaging technique called near-infrared absorption spectroscopy to detect cholesterol build up in the mummy's heart and arteries.
Typically, researchers use a imaging technique called computer tomography to scan mummies with blood vessels, organs and bones. However, that technique shows that calcium accumulates not cholesterol in arteries.
'It seems to be a problem for a very long time,' said Dr. Mohammad Madjid.
Madjid and his colleagues were the first to use near-infrared absorption spectroscopy to detect cholesterol in mummies.
With the results of this study, experts discovered that the ancients had more clogged arteries than we ever knew. Accordingly, they suffer from atherosclerosis quite early.
- 500-year-old mummies are intact
