Ötzi , also known as the Iceman , is one of the most interesting Copper Age finding in Europe . Now a natural mummy , the man hold up between 3400 and 3100 BCE and died in the Alps after being shot with an pointer and viciously attack . Recent analysis uncover that if he had n’t beenmurdered , he would have been at an increased risk of having a heart attack .
investigator from the Central Hospital Bolzano - Bozen do a CT scan of the Iceman ’s philia and find three areas of calcification in his coronary vessels as well as signs of calcification around the carotid artery and in the arteries at the base of the skull .
“ If atomic number 20 is detected , this means that arteriosclerotic brass are present . If one were to apply the calcifications to the nub of a live individual , then the values find in Ötzi would correspond to those of an approximately 45 - year - previous man with light pelt , ” Patrizia Pernter , a radiologist at the Central Hospital , said in astatement .
Ötzi ’s years has previously been estimated to be around 46 years old , so a consistency between the calcifications depth psychology ( which is affected by parameters like sex , ethnicity , and eld ) and other studies tells us a caboodle . Ötzi had a more participating modus vivendi than modernistic hoi polloi , so the research worker suggest that the development of arteriosclerotic brass had an important genetical component for the Iceman . depth psychology of the mummy ’s genome in 2012 had previously suggested that Ötzi had a predisposition to cardiovascular disease .
“ The presence or absence of Ca depositary can be of value when reckon the cardiovascular risk of infection for a patient ; that is to say , in addition to other risk divisor ( stock lipide , smoking , raised blood pressure , diabetes etc . ) the comportment of coronary calcification can be a further denotation of increased risk of having coronary affection disease or of developing it in the future , ” Pernter explain while discussing what the calcification might have intend for the pitiful humans ’s hereafter .
Ötzi is the oldest innate mama ever found in Europe , and this analysis play up one of the oldest observed cases of vascular calcification . Researchers think that the Iceman is an important example of the part that genetical sensitivity turn in hardening of the arteries and coronary heart disease .
