Atherosclerosis is not a child of the modern age.

This unexpected claim is supported by a study published in the journal Lancet and presented at the American College of Cardiology 2013 Scientific Sessions.

This intriguing study prompted Nutricity to take a critical look at the information surrounding a disease commonly associated with patients' lifestyle and eating habits, which some medical-paleontological evidence would instead appear to refute.

Whole-body CT scans performed on mummies from 4 different geographical regions spanning a period of 4000 years suggest that atherosclerosis in ancient populations was more common than previously believed. Studying individuals from ancient Egypt, ancient Peru, the ancestral Puebloans of the American Southwest and hunter-gatherers of the Aleutian Islands, researchers were able to identify atherosclerosis in more than a third (1/3) of the mummified specimens, raising the possibility that humans have a natural predisposition to the disease.

The researchers comment: "our findings greatly increase the number of ancient humans known to have had atherosclerosis and show, for the first time, that the disease was common in several ancient cultures with varying lifestyles, diets and genetics, across wide geographical distances and over a long span of human history. These findings suggest that our understanding of the causative factors of atherosclerosis is largely incomplete and that atherosclerosis may be inherent to the process of human ageing ".

The research, led by Dr Randall Thompson (University of Missouri - Kansas City School of Medicine), who had previously presented data showing that heart disease was evident in CT scans of Egyptian mummies dating back 3500 years, is unique in that it finds atherosclerosis in 4 different pre-industrial populations from 4 different geographical regions. The ancient Egyptians and Peruvians were farmers, the ancestral Puebloans were forager-farmers and the Unangan of the Aleutian Islands were hunter-gatherers with no agricultural activity at all. None of these cultures is known to have been vegetarian and all are believed to have been physically active. The diets of these populations were quite varied, as was the climate. Indigenous plant foods varied greatly given the wide geographical distance between these regions of the world. Fish and game were present in all the cultures, but the protein source varied from domesticated cattle among the Egyptians to an almost exclusively marine diet among the Unangan.

In total, whole-body CT scans were performed on 137 mummies, of which 76 were Egyptians, 51 ancient Peruvians, 5 ancestral Puebloans, and 5 Unangan hunter-gatherers. Probable or definite atherosclerosis was evident in 34% of the mummies. 29 Egyptians, 13 ancient Peruvians, two ancestral Puebloans, and three Unangan mummies had documented evidence of atherosclerosis, defined by a calcified plaque in the wall of the arteries (or probable atherosclerosis if calcifications were observed along the course of the artery). Aortic sclerosis was observed in 28 mummies and iliac or femoral atherosclerosis in 25 mummies. Another 25 mummies presented popliteal or tibial atherosclerosis while 17 showed carotid atherosclerosis and 6 coronary sclerosis. One in four mummies had atherosclerosis in at least 2 vascular beds. The mean age at the time of death, calculated on the basis of bone structure, was 43 years, and age was positively correlated with atherosclerosis. Thompson and colleagues point out that all four populations lived in an era in which infections were a common cause of death.

In conclusion, atherosclerosis was common in four pre-industrial populations, including a pre-agricultural population of hunter-gatherers, and across a wide span of human history. The presence of atherosclerosis in pre-modern humans suggests that the disease is an intrinsic component of human ageing and is not associated with any specific diet or lifestyle.