Scans Show Ancient Heart Disease

Mummy in the Machine

The mummy was among 52 from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo subjected to medical scanning by a joint U.S.-Egyptian team. The tests revealed that almost half of the dead have clogged arteries associated with a condition called atherosclerosis, which can lead to heart attack or stroke.

One of the mummies, a princess who died about 3,500 years ago, is now the oldest known case of the arterial disease, the researchers say.

"If the princess was in a time machine and I was to see her now, I would tell her to lay off the fat, take plenty of exercise, then schedule her for heart surgery," said study co-leader Gregory Thomas, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Irvine. "She would require a double bypass."