Per AP, (via Instapundit), the mummies had atherosclerosiss. It wasn’t unique to Egyptian mummies, either. Peruvian mummies had it, as did Aleutian mummies and mummies from the southwestern desert areas of the U.S.
Reactions to the study were, of course, mixed. Doctors said that perhaps there is a genetic link to atherosclerosis. A researcher said that we need to follow a healthy diet, exercise, and not smoke unless we want to end up like the mummies. I note as a point of interest in the article that the older mummies were the ones with evidence of atherosclerosis, and they were about 43 years of age at the time of death. The ones without atherosclerosis were about 32 years of age at the time of their death. Hunh.
Well. I don’t believe that following a “healthy” diet, exercising, and not smoking is going to make me immortal, so I shall ‘be like the mummies” one of these days if by “be like the mummies” he meant “dead”. Grin. I also note that a diet high in whole grains without pesticides or the diet of a hunter gatherer does NOT make one immune to atherosclerosis. The intensive exercise that they did gave them arthritis. And nobody smoked cigarettes but perhaps inhaling the smoke from cooking fires gives the same effect.
