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Don't blame fast food: Mummies had heart disease

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This is very interesting. Seems like heart disease has been around since God created mankind. I read a few times that heart disease and certain cancers began in the 20th century. This new discovery allows us to see that maybe food is relevant to these diseases, but also maybe how we can improve our diets and enjoy a healthy old age.

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DickMorris,

I read a few times that heart disease and certain cancers began in the 20th century.

Where did you read that? I find it as interesting as the heart disease in the mummies actually. Cancers and heart disease have been killing people probably since before we evolved into humans. (Kinda like the chicken and the egg, our species was already around before it finished up as this bunch of feeble nut-jobs who can't even cope with the common cold half the time.) I had absolutely no idea that there were people in the world so deluded that the old days were so healthy that they were prepared to write such drivvle. Tell me please, was it on the net or - worse - on paper? I like to know such things, it helps sort out factual literature from nonsense.

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dammit: human dying of cancer back at the dawn of humanity is plausible but in our "modern" age, chemical pollutions just made it worse.

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I'm telling you all right now, meat is causing this. This is more fire for me. Stay off the meat. Besides, you can't be environmentally conscience if you do eat meat. The Egyptians clearly ate too much meat.

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dammit; I find your post very poor form. It has been said by many experts that heart disease and cancer were almost non existent before modern times.

I am looking at this with an open mind and though i provide no links, my interpretation of humans seems to be accepted by many prominant scientists.

This is the reason that this discovery has such meaning to us. Please open your mind to what others may believe and look in a sensible way as i have myself.

I beleieved heart disease to be a modern illness, and it appears i was wrong. I can admit that, what is wrong with my world view?

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Lifestyle-related diseases normally take time to develop. Back in them days the average lifespan was around 20, and the average person was probably hungry for most of those 20-something years. If you got to be turned into a mummy, it was because you were rich and important - you would have a much richer diet than the average, probably less need to move. A lifestyle much closer to the average today.

While the incidence of heart disease and cancer may have risen in the 20th century, it's because people started to live longer and more affluently, eating more meat and riding around in cars and trains instead of walking.

We're also seeing more heart disease and cancer in dogs these days, partly because they're being fed richer food but also because they're living longer and have more time to develop lifestyle-related diseases. In the old days they'd die of filaria, or distemper, or rabies, or malnutrition at the age of five or six, now they develop cancer at ten or twelve.

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It has been said by many experts that heart disease and cancer were almost non existent before modern times.

For most of human history the max age didn't go very far past 35 either. Stands to reason that many people simply didn't live long enough to accumulate the plaque needed for heart disease or long enough to develope cancer. Thats not to say they didn't exist, merely that most people didn't stick around long enough to develope them.

I'm telling you all right now, meat is causing this.

The men of my family eat like pigs, smoke like demons, and drink like fish and not a single one of them has died before the age of 78. Some people are simply more acclimated to the vices than others and I can think of no reason to cease any one of them unless they begin to represent an immediate risk to my health.

RIP mummies may you reach you're lands of milk and honey or wherever ancient egyptians decided to spend eternity...maybe in Reno?

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Don't be fooled - these guys probably had slaves constantly feeding them McPharoah burgers or the ancient equivalent while they sat on their fat asses.

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DickMorris- "Seems like heart disease has been around since God created mankind."

Sure, blame it on God, Dick.

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DickMorris (again),

It has been said by many experts that heart disease and cancer were almost non existent before modern times.

That's mostly nonsense. Most people rarely lived long enough to get that ill, and if they did they couldn't afford a doctor who might diagnose them. There were no autopsies to find out why poor people died either, although their bodies might have been used illegally for training medics but the results could hardly be used for official purposes and they were only really interested in finding out where all the bits went. Other people might possibly be able to afford a doctor, but the odds were that he would just be a quack and stick a couple of leeches on them for a few hours. Cancers sometimes can't be diagnosed until after death anyway, and heart attacks were far more likely to kill then than now.

And if you can accept that one of your views on humans was wrong why are you so sure of anything else? If you really want to look at it with an open mind listen to those of us who point out that people died young in years gone by, often too young to develop these diseases. But there are many cases in history of people who did, so what's the point in denying it?

Those who say it's because of meat may well be right. But I'm sure lots of other things make it worse too, including DickMorris's pet hates. You're right in many ways Dick. But if people back then lived as long as us, and had the technology we had, maybe we'd know a bit more accurately what ailed them. I wasn't having a go at you by the way, I was actually quite surprised and interested. Still am. And I do agree with you that modern ways are making it worse.

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