Mediterranean diet says what?

Source: The Beeb

Okay, it’s not the mediterranean but most of you in North America won’t know the difference.  A medical study was carried out in conjunction with Cairo’s (in Egypt) Museum of Antiquities on mummies of all people.  22 of them and the results are interesting.

16 of the 22 mummies were preserved sufficiently to identify arteries, or at least pathways for the arteries, and residual areas of the heart.  of those 16, 9 had calcifications in what would have been their coronary arteries. Yep atherosclerosis, a build up of cholesterol.  So while they weren’t eating fast food or processed foods, there is something going on here because they have evidence, albeit very retrospectively of Coronary Artery Disease (CAD).

Okay, admittedly it’s not “earth-shattering” and it certainly doesn’t offer any kind of excuse for the majority of those overweight and sedentary eating processed and highly fat-saturated meals, but it is interesting.  Given that the populace of ancient Egypt is generally believed to have consumed a “healthy diet” by our standards today, why the plaque?

Well it may simply represent a genetic predisposition to high cholesterol or it could also mean that the closely related and highly affluent who were fortunate enough (if that’s the right phrasing) to be mummified were also privy to a diet higher in proteins and fats.  I’ll defer to the actual biological anthropologists and not we “dabblers.”

~Posted by David Marc Schwadron, Esquire