Ancient Mummy Had Prostate Cancer

CAIRO -- A professor from American University in Cairo says discovery of prostate cancer in a 2,200-year-old mummy indicates the disease was caused by genetics, not environment.

The genetics-environment question is key to understanding cancer.

AUC professor Salima Ikram, a member of the team that studied the mummy in Portugal for two years, said Sunday the mummy was of a man who died in his forties.

She said this was the second oldest known case of prostate cancer.

"Living conditions in ancient times were very different; there were no pollutants or modified foods, which leads us to believe that the disease is not necessarily only linked to industrial factors," she said.

A statement from AUC says the oldest known case came from a 2,700 year-old skeleton of a king in Russia.

Comments

[Gaaltero]

09:27 PM on 02/02/2012

Of course cancer has been around for thousands of years.

[MsMoonpieJD]

03:30 PM on 02/01/2012

I think the diagnosis is a little late for this fellow.

[lensamy]

01:33 PM on 01/31/2012

I guess theres truly nothing new under the sun and a lot disease including cancer have been around for aeons.

[Andy49]

12:30 AM on 01/31/2012

Interesting story but a lousy conclusion. Because the mummy had it does not mean that genetics is the only thing in play today. With the chemicals in a modern society in the mix one can't say that genetics is the only cause of prostrate cancer today. It might make one more prone to the disease but more than likely is not the sole factor and may not have been then we just don't know what was in the diet or environment at the time the person lived.

[dickn2000b]

10:48 PM on 01/30/2012

Might I point out that, technically, a mummy can't contract cancer. A mummy is dead. A mummy might contract mold or worms, but never cancer. The cancer was contracted by the person who, ultimately, died and was, subsequently, mummified.

[summer261987]

10:18 PM on 01/30/2012

this article is too short...

[ipleathe5thh]

07:50 PM on 01/30/2012

I'd like to know how they figured out he had prostate cancer

[BurtonDesque]

08:08 PM on 01/30/2012

CT Scan.

[ipleathe5thh]

08:20 PM on 01/30/2012

Gotcha

[smiles41]

06:46 PM on 01/30/2012

One man's polutants are another man's nutrients....wonder what his occupation was: embalmer? tomb builder? farmer? fisherman? Did they smoke funny stuff back then??

[gleitz05]

06:42 PM on 01/30/2012

You'd think that researchers would've had enough time by now to develop a cure.

[BurtonDesque]

08:09 PM on 01/30/2012

Why? You think that sort of stuff is easy?

[gleitz05]

09:29 PM on 01/30/2012

Since the disease has been around for over 2000 years, I was using a bit of sarcasm.

[gleitz05]

09:42 AM on 01/31/2012

Don't know why your last comment to me was deleted. Too many comments seem to not get printed for some reason. At any rate, I really hadn't been thinking about the conspiracy theories, but I understand where you're going from! I've seen some of those types of remarks here on hp, too.

[mclkarim]

11:31 AM on 01/31/2012

It is not that simple. It is very complicated. There are many variables and many different types of cancer involved, which make it very difficult to find a "cure" for all cancers.

[gleitz05]

01:11 PM on 01/31/2012

My comment was meant as a joke, seeing as how the story indicated the disease has been around for over 2000 years.

[nschomer]

06:15 PM on 01/30/2012

"there were no pollutants or modified foods"
Really? One of the more potent carcinogens we know of are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which can be produced simply by cooking meat at high temperatures. That char that people love coming off the barbecue is actually rather bad for you, and certainly existed in ancient times.
I'm not an expert on how the ancient Egyptians liked their meat, but if I had to guess I would say well-done, without refrigeration or other preservatives, people probably cooked their meat rather to a crisp out of necessity.

[SocietalSilence]

09:01 PM on 01/30/2012

Agreed! Not to mention, there are a myriad of other natural causes to cancer that people wouldn't believe.

Also, they really need to consider prevalence and incidence. Cancer doesn't come from pollutants. Cancer comes from genetic dysfunctions and cellular regulation that can be affected by pollutants. Obviously, it should be expected that our environment is much more industrialized, so the incidence is much higher.

[IfIonlyknew]

05:31 PM on 01/30/2012

No pollutants...I heard thet put lead in their wine.

[JustplayinKoi]

07:33 PM on 01/30/2012

it wasn't the wine,, it was the containers that they drank it out of,, same with the Romans.. Oh and if you keep with the thread you responded with me to, you would see the original comment was about diseases in general.. and no my psoriasis is not a cancer..

[IfIonlyknew]

08:00 PM on 01/30/2012

O....I thought this was about pollutants of the olden day

[iamwired]

04:17 PM on 01/30/2012

That mummy's teeth are still whiter than many Americans.

[biskitdaddy]

04:58 PM on 01/30/2012

And he's got MORE teeth than many Americans.

[LuLuismoir]

06:15 PM on 01/30/2012

I was thinking the same thing! Pretty impressive for such an old guy.

[Artos]

03:39 PM on 01/30/2012

(AUC professor Salima Ikram, said," Living conditions in ancient times were very different; there were no pollutants or modified foods, which leads us to believe that the disease is not necessarily only linked to industrial factors,")---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First of all that isn't necessarily true. Just because she doesn't know of any doesn't mean there weren't any. As far as I know there was a lot of use of lead implements such as cups and plates. That would be a pollutant. There were also plenty of natural pollutants as well as the use of firewoods that they burned all the time. They also did quite a bit of smelting in order to make their metals. Who really knows what they used in that process. For her to say that they had no pollutants in such a qualified statement is atrocious. The way our society works, to use her so called evidence as proof that anyone who suffers from Prostate cancer is self inflicted, would give some private enterprises or Governments all the excuse they needed to lump everyone together thereby denying their legal claims in legitimate disputes.

[IfIonlyknew]

07:14 PM on 01/30/2012

Bingo.....

[dennismcmh]

02:53 PM on 01/30/2012

Prostate Cancer in a mummy? What I want to know is; who stuck their finger in the mummy's pooper and found the cancer?? C R E E P Y !!!!!!

[Artos]

03:43 PM on 01/30/2012

When they dug him up he had a Medical alert ID bracelet on his wrist.

[fedup2here11]

05:20 PM on 01/30/2012

AHAHAHAH

[BurtonDesque]

04:07 PM on 01/30/2012

I guess you missed the words CT SCAN in the article.

[mxytsplyk]

04:36 PM on 01/30/2012

LOL!!

[Martin Schadeberg]

06:44 PM on 01/30/2012

Unless you read a different article there was "nothing" said about a CT Scan in the above article.

[garylinn]

02:37 PM on 01/30/2012

smokinjoe36.

1 Fans
Become a fan

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2 hours ago (12:49 PM)
And according to the National Heart Associatio­n......eve­rybody in the history of the world that has ever contracted lung cancer, got it from smoking or second hand smoke.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MY Grandma died of lung cancer and never smoked a day in her life. She did, however, live next to a coal mine most of her life.

[IfIonlyknew]

07:15 PM on 01/30/2012

My Grandmother also died that way.