‘It’s literally older than Moses’: St. Luke’s doctor finds heart disease in mummies
Unveiling a Condition Centuries Old
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A discovery that harks back to an epoch much older than antiquity, enlightens us that heart disease was prevalent among humans over 4,000 years ago. This affirmation comes from a team of cardiologists from across the globe, led by Dr. Randall Thompson of Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, who have spent more than a decade meticulously examining CT scans and tracking data.
The fruits of their labor have given rise to the Global HORUS Study, which was recently published in the European Heart Journal. Among the key findings of this pioneering research is evidence that humans have a natural susceptibility to atherosclerosis, a condition characterized by the buildup of plaque in the arteries.
A Surprising Revelation
Remarkably, evidence of this potentially fatal disease was found in 89 out of the 237 adult mummies that were analyzed. Notably, the mummies hailed from seven diverse cultures spanning over 4,000 years, including ancient Egyptian, lowland ancient Peruvians, ancient highland Andean Bolivians, 19th century Aleutian Islander hunter-gatherers, 16th century Greenlandic Intuits, ancestral Puebloan, and Middle-Ages Gobi Desert pastoralists.
Stumbled Upon Ancient Heart Disease
The spark that ignited this research journey was quite accidental. A colleague of Dr. Thompson had spotted plaque in the heart of a pharaoh’s mummy on display at a Cairo museum, a moment that spurred the cardiologists to investigate further, despite their initial disbelief considering atherosclerosis to be a contemporary ailment.
Heart Disease Dates Back Millennia
“It’s literally older than Moses, and we find it’s almost certainly just part of the human condition. We have an inherent nature, tendency to develop this disease,” Dr. Thompson said. “Here we are using a 21st-century instrument to look back and see disease from 3,000-4,000 years ago.”
The Inevitability of Disease
The finding of ancient heart disease creates a sense of wonder and bittersweet irony. The course of modern medicine, how a mummy’s natural preserved state could be probed, and the intertwining of life and existence with the reality of disease presents a profound paradox.
“It was amazing at first and it’s gratifying that as we’ve continued to work we keep seeing the disease, we keep seeing this process in all these different cultures all over the world,” Dr. Thompson added. The astonishing frequency of the disease across diverse cultures and over the centuries serves as a poignant reminder from Dr. Thompson to modern mankind to lead healthy lifestyles.
Beating Disease in the 21st Century
This includes abstaining from smoking, maintaining a nutritious diet, and monitoring blood pressure. Dr. Thompson emphasizes the need for these precautions to counteract what seems to be our human predisposition towards atherosclerosis, climbing the summits of science and time to issue a preventive word of caution to humanity living millennia after these mummies.
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