WASHINGTON/LONDON – It turns out that our ancestors — meat-
eating or tuber-loving, Mediterranean or Arctic, roaming or
sedentary — all could have used some medicine to help prevent
heart disease. A new study of 137 mummified bodies, some as old
as 3,500 years, found a high prevalence of hardening of the
arteries, which often presages heart attack or stroke. The
condition was common in four groups — ancient Egyptians, pre-
Columbian people in Peru and Utah, and 19th-century Alaska
natives — with different diets and ways of life. “It kind of
casts doubt on — makes us pause and think about — whether we
understand risk factors (for cardiovascular disease) as well as
we thought we did,” said Randall Thompson, a physician at the
University of Missouri who headed a research team of 19
cardiologists, radiologists and anthropologists. “Probable or
definite” atherosclerosis was evident in 34 percent of the
mummies. Only 4 percent, however, had atherosclerosis in the
coronary arteries, where it can cause heart attacks. T