Oily fish and other foods that are deep inomega-3 fatty acidsare supposed to help protect us from heart disease , so it seems unlikely that ancientInuit hunterswould have had misfortunate cardiovascular health , given their marine - based diet . Yet astonishingly , CAT scan of four mummified Inuit who died 500 age ago have reveal that they suffered from blocked arteries , just like trillion of masses dwell today .
Many of the unhealthy riding habit associate with advanced life style – such as excessive saccharide consumption and too much meter sitting on lounge – have contributed to the lift of cardiovascular disease , which is now the leading campaign of death worldwide . In picky , atherosclerosis , which involves the build - up of fat person brass in arterial blood vessel , has become hazardously predominant in wealthier countries . In 2013,researchers examine 137 mummiesfrom ancient civilisation in Egypt , Peru , and the Arctic , and were surprised to discover evidence of coronary artery disease in someone who lived as long ago as 3100 BCE . However , none of the mummies involved in this study would have eat up a diet that was peculiarly high in omega-3 , which is why researchers led by Ascension Healthcare in Wisconsin decided to count specifically at Inuit mummies . Four specimens were obtained from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge , Massachusetts , all of which were in the beginning found on the island of Uunartaq , close to Greenland , in 1929 . An analytic thinking of dental and skeletal features revealed that the two male and two female mom were all probable to have been between the ages of 18 and 30 when they died , while their clothes and other items found in their Stephanie Graf suggest that they subsist in the 16th C . publish their findings in the journalJAMA internet Open , the researchers excuse that “ these individuals would have … hunt from kayak with spear , bows , and arrows for their diet of Pisces , bird , maritime mammal , and caribou . ”In nastiness of this diet , computed imaging ( CT ) scans of the mummies reveal that three of them suffered from calcified atheroma , which hap when memorial tablet of fatty material accumulate in arteries , do them to harden and narrow , thereby restricting stemma flow . These plaques were remarkably similar to those interpret in mod man , and which regularly lead to fatal heart and soul attacks and strokes by preclude blood flowing around the heart and mentality . Whether or not this add to the Inuits ’ decease is insufferable to secern , although the very fact that they suffered from atherosclerosis in spite of their fishy diet and vigorous lifestyle casts major doubt on any assumptions that modern lifestyles are responsible for the experimental condition . Exactly which factors led to the preponderance of coronary artery disease in this ancient Inuit population is also obscure , although the study authors suggest that it may have been do by breathing in too much smoke from indoor fires .
