 |
| Source: Flikr/Richard Kelly |
Coronary and heart diseases are often thought to be modern diseases. But the first case of atherosclerosis found in a mummy of an Egyptian princess that lived 1580 and 1550 BC shows that heart diseases may have been affecting humans longer than we expected.
Adel Allam, a cardiologist at Al-Azhar Medical School in Cairo and Gregory Thomas of the University of California, Irvine, studied 52 Egyptian mummies to find how common the disease really was in this ancient civilization. Of the 44 mummies that still had heart and arteries, 45% showed hardening of the arteries.
According to these results, the disease was apparently very prevalent in ancient Egypt – at least among the noble families who ruled the country.
Known risk factors for atherosclerosis include smoking, a calorie-rich diet, lack of exercise and a genetic predisposition. The nobility of ancient Egypt probably enjoyed fattier diets than the common people in the street and might have been less mobile, but the high rate of incidence of the disease is still baffling.
“We think there must be other risk factors that we are missing,” Thomas told Science.
The team is now going to test a hypothesis that the result of this high rate of atherosclerosis may have been a result of bacterial infections widespread around the Nile basin, such as malaria. This may have called inflammations which, while they help in the healing process, can contribute to the development of atherosclerosis.
It is very interesting for me.Will bacteria affect the rate of atherosclerosis nowadays? What are names of bacteries of such as malaria?
Thank you for your helping.
Sevgi KARACA
Well bacteria can cause inflammations. These inflammations, while they help the body heal, can lead to further depositions in arteries, leading to atherosclerosis. That is what the researchers want to test next.
Malaria can be caused by several bacteria species known as Plasmodium. The most serious of them is Plasmodium falciparum
Another infection that is widespread in the Nile basin is Bilharziasis (often called schistosomiasis) caused by the flatworm schistosomes.
The researchers want to test this hypothesis and explore that point you highlighted, which is simply to ask if there are risk factors for atherosclerosis that we are unaware of.
Dear Mohammed Yahia;
Thank you for your kindness and cooperation.
Sevgi KARACA
This is very interesting, thanks for sharing.
I have a remark though: I am a bit concerned about the repeated definition of Plasmodium falciparum as a bacterium. It is not a bacterium, but a protozoan unicellular 🙂
the treatment or cure was sent to the earth before the disease by ALLAH sht.
As in Quran the epidermis of the seed of Dates is the cure of deafness.
why the research is not done on the topic “Tretment by Quran” alelaj bil Quran—
The solution is there not for only malaria but also of other stuborn diseases such as atheroscleoris etc
Ah my apologies Rayna – you are totally correct there.
Doctor Anwar, I don’t really agree with you there. Modern science is needed to find cure to medications. I’m not aware of any reference to the treatment of malaria in the Quran (nor for a myriad of other diseases)