Cancer’s Relationship to Diet and Environment

It’s interesting to note that cancer was found in only one in a few hundred mummies of Egyptian times. It isn’t commonly referred to in ancient Egyptian or Greek medical texts. One study, out of Manchester, England, suggests that cancer, specifically cancer of young children and young adults is a man made disease due to heredity, diet and environment.

The study showed that cancer in mummies from ancient Greece was extremely rare. In fact, they found only one case of cancer in their study and noted only two cases found throughout the world. The incidence of cancer has, in fact, become much greater in children and young adults after the industrial revolution began. This increased the amount of pollution in the air and carcinogens in the environment.

One professor involved in the study says that cancer is secondary to cardiovascular disease in developed countries but in ancient times, it was found to be very rare. At that time, there was nothing in the environment that could contribute to cancer. This makes cancer a man made disease, caused by dietary changes in our lifestyle as well as by pollution in the atmosphere.

Scientists have conducted histological studies of mummies and found the lack of mummy cancers to be quite remarkable. Investigators carried out evaluations of remains found in humans as far back as the dinosaur period (animal remains). According to these studies, cancer was very rare in both animals and humans. This was especially true in non-human primates, animals and early human remains. Only one fossil was found to have evidence of metastatic cancer. Most tumors found were believed to be benign tumors. Osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and other atherosclerotic diseases were found in ancient Egyptian and Greek remains and this indicated the mummies were old enough to have evidence of cancer if it existed. This means that the short lives of these people were not enough of a reason to suggest there was no cancer in these people. There is also no evidence of cancers in childhood that are relatively common today.

It is suggested that tumors don’t preserve well and this is why cancers can’t be found in mummies. In fact, tumors last longer and preserve better than regular tissues in the body. There is also no evidence that tumors were surgically removed until the 1600s, when doctors removed certain tumors. Distinctive tumors have only been found in the last 200 years, when things like scrotal cancer showed up in chimney sweeps. Nasal cancer was found in snuff users as early as the 1700s. It is suggested that those mummies who did have cancer may have been exposed to incense or smoke in their homes and that this is what may have caused their cancer.