Modern diets high in artery-clogging saturated fat, smoking and a lack of exercise have repeatedly been blamed for the prominence and rise of heart disease in recent years. A new finding, however, may suggest heart disease has less to do with external factors and more with genetics. Scientists recently unearthed a 3,500 mummy who shows signs of having heart disease... thousands of years before the emergence of the Big Mac!

"We think of it as being caused by modern risk factors," such as hand-in-chip-bag-couch-potato-behavior we call "relaxing," but the findings show that these aren't the only reasons arteries clog, said Dr. Randall Thompson, a cardiologist at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City.

Thompson, along with several other researchers, used CT scans on 22 mummies in the Egyptian National Museum of Antiquities in Cairo who lived between 1981 B.C. to 344 A.D. Half the group were thought to be over 45 when they died, as the average lifespan was under 50 back then.

Of the sixteen mummies who still had heart and blood vessel tissue to analyze, hardening in arteries (a tell-tale sign of heart disease) was found in nine of them. One even showed signs of having had a heart attack, though scientists aren't sure if it was fatal.

"We were struck by the similar appearance of vascular calcification in the mummies and our present-day patients," said another researcher, Dr. Michael Miyamoto of the University of California at San Diego. "Perhaps the development of atherosclerosis is a part of being human."

Obesity could have been a factor, though it is impossible to tell, as mummification dehydrates the body to a point where researchers can't estimate weight. What they do know is that all were of high social status, and many served int he court of the Pharaoh or as priests or priestesses.

"Rich people ate meat, and they did salt meat, so maybe they had hypertension (high blood pressure), but that's speculation," Thompson said.

With modern diets, "we all sort of live in the Pharaoh's court," said another of the researchers, Dr. Samuel Wann of the Wisconsin Heart Hospital in Milwaukee.

If clogging our arteries with foods that were available before the mechanical-food-processing revolution was possible, it could make our finger-pointing at fast food partially bogus, as the cause could even lie in certain seemingly healthy, organic types of food. What do you think?

via AP