Mummy Had Earliest Case of Heart Disease

The mummy of Esankh, male, (1070-712 BCE), undergoing CT scanning. (Credit: Dr. Michael Miyamoto / UC San Diego)


An Egyptian princess who lived more than 3,500 years ago had the oldest known case of coronary artery disease, according to a new study which provides unique insights into the origins of atherosclerosis.

The mummified remains of the princess, who lived in Thebes (Luxor) between 1580 and 1550 B.C., were investigated by a team of Egyptian and U.S. researchers.

Using whole-body, multi-slice computed tomography scanning, the researchers found evidence of arterial calcification in the mummy, which is a marker for cardiovascular disease.

The analysis revealed that Princess Ahmose-Meryet-Amon, who died in her early 40s, had a casebook condition of atherosclerosis, a type of hardening of the arteries responsible for most heart diseases.

She showed signs of atherosclerosis in her aorta, carotids, coronaries, iliac and femoral arteries.

"Today she would have needed bypass surgery," said Gregory S. Thomas, director of Nuclear Cardiology Education at the University of California, Irvine, and co-author of the study.

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Ahmose-Meryet-Amon wasn't an isolated case. Commonly considered a result of our modern lifestyle, atherosclerosis was surprisingly widespread in ancient Egypt.

The researchers pointed out that 45 percent of the mummies they put through CT scans show signs of atherosclerosis. They presented their findings at the International Conference of Non-Invasive Cardiovascular Imaging in Amsterdam last week.

They investigated 52 Egyptian mummies, mostly from the Egyptian National Museum of Antiquities in Cairo, who lived between 1981 BC and 364 A.D.

The mummies included 33 males, 17 females and two individuals of unknown gender.

Recognizable arteries were present in 44 of the mummies, while an identifiable heart was present in 16.

Among the 44 mummies with hearts or identifiable blood vessels, 20 had definite or probable atherosclerosis.

Eight mummies showed carotid calcification, while severe atherosclerotic calcifications was seen in the arteries of the upper leg of a male scribe who lived during the 18th Dynasty.

"Overall, it was striking how much atherosclerosis we found," said Thomas.

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It's not the first time that plaque build-up has been found in the arteries of Egyptian mummies.

Atherosclerosis in ancient Egyptians was first identified in 1852 when physiologist Johann Nepomuk Czermak found calcific aortic atherosclerosis during the autopsy of a mummy belonging to an elderly Egyptian woman.

Other autopsies found histologic evidence of atherosclerosis in the aorta as well as in other large arteries on several 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummies.

However, the Horus study is the largest, non-invasive investigation on this disease. Spanning over two millennia, it detected evidence of atherosclerosis in almost all the dynastic eras of ancient Egypt, and highlighted differences in the mummies’ socioeconomical status.

"Among the 25 mummies for whom social position could be determined, 10 were priests or priestesses. Atherosclerosis was less common in clergy than in non- clergy," wrote the researchers.

Cardiovascular diseases are now the world's leading killers, claiming more than 17 million lives in 2010.

Thomas and colleagues wondered how this "disease of modern life" could have affected the ancient Egyptians.

They appeared to eat a heart-healthy diet, including lots of vegetables, fruit and a limited amount of meat, bread and beer. Egyptians were active, and did not know tobacco or trans-fats.

Thomas and his co-principal investigator Dr. Adel Allam of Al Azhar University, Cairo, suggested that the cause for atherosclerosis could have been a genetic predisposition or an inflammatory response to frequent parasitic diseases.

However, they did not rule out a dietary effect.

The diet of Princess Ahmose-Meryet-Amon and the mummies belonging to higher social classes, could have been significantly different from that of common Egyptians.

As the daughter of Seqenenre Tao II, the last pharaoh of the 17th Dynasty, Ahmose-Meryet-Amon might have enjoyed more meat, butter and cheese.

Foods were also preserved in salt, which may also have had an adverse effect.

The researchers also found that the mummies studied had greater rates of atherosclerosis as they aged.

Those with hardened vessels had an average age of 45, while those who had clear vessel had an average age of 34.5

"Egyptian mummies are a most valuable source to study the evolution of cardiovascular disease," Frank Rühli, head of the Swiss Mummy Project at the Centre for Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, told Discovery News.