We often associate heart disease with all the bad things from modern life: Fast food, stress, a sedentary lifestyle stemming from our modern comforts, etc. But it turns out that the ancient Egyptians suffered from atherosclerosis.
CT scans of 22 Egyptian mummies, several around 3,000 years old, detected significant deposits of calcium in 5 of the 16 mummies with preserved arteries, definitive evidence the people had atherosclerosis while alive. Four other mummies with intact cardiovascular remains had deposits the researchers said probably indicated hardening of the arteries.
I’m not sure what good this data really does us at this point, but if nothing else, it’s making me long for a time when we had no CT scans but already had drive thrus.
