Posted on 10/15/2010 5:08:41 AM PDT by facedodge
Cancer is a man-made disease fuelled by the excesses of modern life, a study of ancient remains has found. Tumours were rare until recent times when pollution and poor diet became issues, the review of mummies, fossils and classical literature found. A greater understanding of its origins could lead to treatments for the disease, which claims more than 150,000 lives a year in the UK.
Michael Zimmerman, a visiting professor at Manchester University, said: 'In an ancient society lacking surgical intervention, evidence of cancer should remain in all cases. 'The virtual absence of malignancies in mummies must be interpreted as indicating their rarity in antiquity, indicating that cancer-causing factors are limited to societies affected by modern industrialisation.' To trace cancer's roots, Professor Zimmerman and colleague Rosalie David analysed possible references to the disease in classical literature and scrutinised signs in the fossil record and in mummified bodies. Despite slivers of tissue from hundreds of Egyptian mummies being rehydrated and placed under the microscope, only one case of cancer has been confirmed. This is despite experiments showing that tumours should be even better preserved by mummification than healthy tissues. Dismissing the argument that the ancient Egyptians didn't live long enough to develop cancer, the researchers pointed out that other age-related disease such as hardening of the arteries and brittle bones died occur. Fossil evidence of cancer is also sparse, with scientific literature providing a few dozen, mostly disputed, examples in animal fossil, the journal Nature Reviews Cancer reports. Even the study of thousands of Neanderthal bones has provided only one example of a possible cancer.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1320507/Cancer-purely-man-say-scientists-finding-trace-disease-Egyptian-mummies.html#ixzz12QZ5XXiq
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Seriously, though, there is an epidemic of scientist using a ridiculously small data set and jumping to wild conclusions without understanding the complex nature of multiple unknown variables.
Your headline has cancer..lol
I know... fail. lol
I wonder what their lifespan was compared to ours?
Most of those mummies died so young that they didn’t have the chance to develop a cancer.
BTW, Prof, what DID they die of?
That leaves the scientists with little more than bones, skin and residual muscle tissue to examine.
Although our movies portray ancient Egyptians as running around barely covered, we don't know that to be the case. Chances are the wealthier classes who ended up totally mummified were covered with chadora-like wraps when outdoors in the Sun.
yup and they are dead anyway, and without taking a flight to Vegas, driving a muscle car or Nefertitti telling her main squeeze on a cell phone “Not tonight, I have my pyramid.”
I’m guessing that the most ancient Egyptians didn’t live past 35 years. Non-behavior-related cancer typically takes a few more decades for it to manifest.
I’m guessing that the most ancient Egyptians didn’t live past 35 years. Non-behavior-related cancer typically takes a few more decades for it to manifest.
If this is true, then cancer should be a less prevalent disease in the third world in people groups that live in un=industrialized places far from civilization and live off the land. I’ve never heard that argument made.
Also, I’m not entirely sure how good examining slivers of tissue is as a method of ruling out all forms of cancer in a corpse is:
“Despite slivers of tissue from hundreds of Egyptian mummies being rehydrated and placed under the microscope, only one case of cancer has been confirmed.”
Considering that the life expectancy of an average man was 45 years back then, they probably didn’t have enough time to develop cancer before they died of something else.
Obviously, they had a cancer treatment. Unfortunately it left the patient dead and mummified.
That was exactly how I felt. I mean really...after billions and billions and billions of people have lived on the earth they're going to state positively that cancer is a modern disease based on a small number of mummmies?
Maybe this proves that the route to academic tenure is proving a theory that's so unique and innovative that it's invariably wrong.
(Note -- first hit about "ancient egypt life expectancy" on Google, from the BBC: "Whilst some ancient Egyptians undoubtedly enjoyed longevity, most were unlikely to live beyond about 40 years of age." I sure ahope you don't see a lot of cancer in a population that lives to 40, if they're lucky. One that usually lives to 80 is a heck of a different story.)
Those were my thoughts as well. I don’t know how many ancient Egyptian mummies exist, but wouldn’t it be possible to dig up a dozen random graves from the last 25 years and find no trace of cancer at all? Isn’t it also possible that Egyptian funereal practices included the disembowlement of the body and may have involved removing any tumors large enough to be observed?
When the sample is this narrow and the conclusion this broad, the credibility must be suspect.
I sense the article is bs, as cancer is a disease of aging.
However it also appears certain cancers are diseases of developed countries. I’ve been told breast cancer is not seen in truly undeveloped countries. The best guess is the disruption of sleep cycles with artificial lighting weakens the immune system and causes breast, colon & other cancers.
Not a minor point. From what I’ve learned I believe it’s essential to sleep in true dark and get enough sunlight and vitamin D.
Of course, the doctor does not mention that the ancient Egyptians life expectancy was about 30 years....and their populations were decimated by plague and other diseases.
You see more cancer, now, because other diseases do not kill you like they did in the past
Let's just throw that out there as a "GIVEN", and then show the supporting interpretation of the evidence. This is SO flawed, logically and scientifically.
How about this proposition:
The absence of cancer in ancient humans is due to the genetic superiority of those generations and the occurrences of cancer in recent generations is due to genetic degradation. This supports/proves creationist theory! We were originally created perfect and subsequent corruption and generational loss of genetic information is causing us to be weaker and more susceptible.
That fits the evidence better than the author's assertion.
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