A series of articles on the Horus study of mummies from around the world appearing in Global Heart showed just how universal atherosclerosis appears to have been across the millennia.
1. Different risk factors, same disease
Whole body CT scans showed no significant difference in incidence or severity of atherosclerotic disease between ancient and modern Egyptians of similar ages. Our ancestors may not have had to contend with fast food and desk jobs, but chronic inflammation from poor hygiene, frequent and persistent infections, and chronic exposure to smoke from cooking and heating fires appeared to do the same kind of damage.
2. Genetic predisposition hasn't changed
Whole-genome analysis of the 5,300-year-old "Ötzi the Iceman" mummy found in a glacier in the Alps turned up several single nucleotide polymorphisms known to be linked to coronary heart disease, including two copies of the minor allele of rs10757274, considered one of the strongest genetic predictors of heart attacks.
"Even though our human ancestors lived far different lives than we do, their environments and lifestyles were not protecting them against the development of atherosclerosis."
3. Still a common experience
Despite a wide range of diets and lifestyles among the mummies studied, atherosclerosis was equally common in those from ancient Egypt as from Peru, the American Southwest, and the remote Aleutian Islands. Atherosclerotic calcification that looked virtually identical on CT imaging as a typical patient today was detect in all major arteries of the mummies.
4. Age matters
While the mummy atherosclerosis couldn't be liked to clinical outcomes or symptoms for the most part, in part due to younger age at death and in part because of little soft tissue preservation, the prevalence did appear to rise with age as it does today. Age-related vascular production of protein lamin A -- the mutant form of which is implicated in the accelerated-aging and aggressive-atherosclerosis disorder progeria -- was speculated as a potential additional explanation for the pervasiveness of atherosclerosis across the millennia.