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