Amadeus Schmidt wrote: > > Egyptians had a lot of diseases, as you tell. Cancer, infections, > parasites. But obesity? The mummies I personally have seen were not obese. > Amadeus, I think you would need to be a paleopathologist to know whether a mummy had been obese before mummification and the subsequent millenia of drying out and shrinking. Apparently paleopathologists find folds of skin that indicate obesity. Some claim the obesity rate in ancient Egypt was similar to the rate today in the United States. At least it seems well accepted that they had major levels or artery disease including advanced calcified atherosclerosis. Here are some links. The first one is of particular interest as it reports on the work of the famous paleopathologist Ruffer and at the end of the article relates his speculations as to the cause of Ancient Egyptians high levels of artery disease. He rules out tobacco and syphilis, since they had neither. He wants to blame meat consumption, but has to admit that even the wealthier classes who were mummified (and had the arteriosclerosis) had a coarse, mainly vegetable diet. He winds up saying that the causes are as "obscure" as they are today, and I would like to suggest that he just didn't know about hyperinsulinemia due to starch-based diet. Another possibility is that gliadin from whole-wheat was causing autoimmune-related artery disease. http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/xmas98/magee/magee.html http://www.quantumhcp.com/obesity.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_291000/291133.stm http://www.giveshare.org/Health/medicinehistory/chapter3.html http://www.zonehome.com/zlib0016.htm http://www.uic.edu/classes/osci/osci590/6_2Mummies%20Mummies%20and%20Disease%20in%20Egypt.htm > Insulin? Compare grain bread andlentils to beef and fish at > http://venus.nildram.co.uk/veganmc/isgs.gif I'll try to look at that. > There is no danger of a protein deficit or taurine or what the author > of protein power of course comes to mind first. > Egyptian people like all old grain/legume based civilasation are likely > to have had more protein in the food as modern western dieters, I'm not sure that it's true that there is no danger of taurine deficit. From what I've read, a vegetarian diet--even with adequate levels of total protein--is very likely to be deficient in taurine which is not officially classified as one of the essential amino acids but is "conditionally" essential nonetheless. In other words, it is not at all well synthesized. Pure herbivores have a greater ability to synthesize taurine than humans, and pure carnivores have even less ability. And it is at rather low levels in most or all plant foods. I think there is more information about that topic at www.beyondveg.com. > You inspired me to look into the archeological references again > and particularly onto insulin topics. "Protein Power Lifeplan", and "Protein Power" have a lot of information about insulin issues. And <http://www.dfhi.com/interviews/rosedale.html> regards, Hilary McClure