Saturday, November 23, 2013

Atherosclerosis in Ancient Mummies Revisited

Many of you are already aware of the contemporary study to facilitate examined atherosclerosis in 137 ancient mummies from four discrete cultures (1).  Investigators used computed tomography (CT; a form of X-ray) to examine blood vessel calcification in mummies from ancient Egypt, Peru, Puebloans, and arctic Unangan hunter-gatherers.  Artery calcification is the accumulation of calcium in the vessel wall, and it is a marker of critical atherosclerosis.  Where at hand is calcification, the blood vessel wall is thickened and extensively damaged.  Not surprisingly, this is a lay bare dynamic representing focal point attack.  Pockets of calcification are average as fill with age.

I'm not departing to re-hash the paper in specify since to facilitate has been complete elsewhere.  However, I look after would like to nominate a a small number of recipe points around the study and its elucidation.  First, all groups had atherosclerosis to a comparable degree, and it increased with advancing age.  This suggests to facilitate atherosclerosis may well be part of the person condition, and not a enlightened disease.  Although it's appealing to own this inveterate in ancient mummies, we already knew this from cardiac autopsy data in a variety of non-industrial cultures (2, 3, 4, 5).

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