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Police: Man burglarizes homes of two women

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Wilkes-Barre Area, Valley West and Wyoming Sem eye field hockey titles

<p>My granddaughter Rowan loves Halloween. All year long she asks to watch &#8220;Scary, but not too scary,&#8221; animated Halloween songs on YouTube. She&#8217;s especially partial to Steve and Maggie, a British guy and his magpie pet who have scary adventures with ghouls, ghosts, zombies, monsters and most delightfully, mummies!</p><p>As if that wasn&#8217;t enough to keep mummies on my mind, this weekend I saw a news report that a cache of 10 was discovered in Egypt, celebrated as a major archeological find.</p><p>With Halloween only days away, mummies &#8212; and a slew of other ghouls, goblins and monsters associated with the annual celebration of the dead &#8212; are also on the minds, and perhaps in the front yards, of other folks who revel in the ghostly holiday.</p><p>But recent research has shown mummies to be more than a window into the burial practices of civilizations-gone-by. These preserved ancestors of humanity can offer insight into the health issues that plagued ancient cultures. A recent article in U.S. News &amp; World Report, citing research conducted at the McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas in Houston, indicates clogged arteries are a millennia-old problem for people.</p><p>By studying mummified arterial tissue, researches found evidence of atherosclerosis, cholesterol plaque buildup, in people who lived between 2000 B.C. and 1000 A.D. Five mummies were studied, three men and two women estimated to be between the ages of 18 and 60 at time of death.</p><p>Rather than royalty, who might have indulged in fatty diets, the mummies examined were commoners. Four of the mummies came from South America, where common people were regularly mummified, and one hailed from Egypt. Because of their social status &#8212; and in the case of the Latin-American mummies, proximity to seafood &#8212; all five likely ate lean diets while alive, but cholesterol-rich plaques were discovered in their arteries despite that probability.</p><p>While studying mummies is common practice, the method by which these specimens were analyzed is uncharted territory.</p><p>The typical method entails using computed tomography (CT) scans to produce detailed images of blood vessels and organs. The problem is, CT scans can only detect calcium build-ups, not actual cholesterol. Since cholesterol plaques tend to calcify, the presence of the former was approximated by the detection of the latter, but certainty was difficult.</p><p>This study, however, utilized near-infrared spectroscopy, which allowed cholesterol in aged arteries to be detected with assurance. The conclusion gathered from this mode of detection was that the onset of atherosclerosis was likely a combination of risk factors and genetics, even then. In other words, the disease could be associated with ancient life and not just modern living and the lifestyle tendencies that go with it.</p><p>Hunter-gatherers, which this study supposed these people were, would have led an active lifestyle and eaten heart-healthy foods, but risk factors would have been present for these folks, as they are today. Smoke inhalation, caused by fire-cooking indoors as well as recreational smoking in some cultures, would have been one major risk factor. And bacterial and parasitic infections could have led to plaque buildups too.</p><p>In fact, indication of clogged arteries in mummies from geographically distinct parts of the planet suggests the affliction is more of a human issue than a modern issue.</p><p>And atherosclerosis is not the only malady we can detect by looking at ancient remains through the lens of contemporary technology. Of the five mummies scrutinized in the study, causes of death were determined for four. Pneumonia, interestingly enough, killed three, and kidney failure, if researchers are correct, killed the fourth.</p><p>Geisinger recently used another modern tech-method to study a mummy, and some inferences were reachable then as well. Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton used state-of-the-art X-ray equipment to examine a Peruvian mummy submitted to the hospital by its neighbor, the Everhart Museum.</p><p>In addition to the mummy&#8217;s gender and approximate age &#8212; likely a male teenager &#8212; X-ray-imagery suggests the specimen could have lived with a metabolic disorder due to the presence of calcification along the spine. The mummy was also missing its toes, which could be a result of over-handling of the body but can also be a marker of infection or frostbite.</p><p>Cinematic mummies invoke the actual past to entertain us in the present, and maybe offer us a fun fright during Halloween season. But actual mummies give us a true glimpse of the past, not only the way people might have lived, but sometimes how they might have died.</p><p>I wonder if zombies get heart disease</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Casale </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/web1_casale_edit-2.jpg</photo0><caption0>Casale </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Alfred Casale</p><p>To Your Health</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Dr. Alfred Casale, a cardiothoracic surgeon, is associate chief medical officer for Geisinger and chair of the Geisinger Heart Institute. Readers may write to him via ae@www.timesleader.com. For a free heart risk assessment, visit geisinger.org/heartrisk.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Dr. Casale: Mummies offer look into ancient health problems