Cancer is a man-made disease fuelled by the excesses of modern life, a study of ancient remains has found.

Tumours were rare until recent times when pollution and poor diet became issues, the review of mummies, fossils and classical literature found.

A greater understanding of its origins could lead to treatments for the disease, which claims more than 150,000 lives a year in the UK.

Scientists found no signs of cancer in their extensive study of mummies apart from one isolated case

Despite slivers of tissue from hundreds of Egyptian mummies being rehydrated, just one case of cancer has been confirmed. This is even though tumours should be better preserved by mummification than healthy tissues.

Fossil evidence is also sparse, with just a few dozen – mostly disputed – examples, Nature Reviews Cancer journal reports.

Even the study of thousands of Neanderthal bones has provided only one example of a possible cancer.

And references to cancer-like problems in ancient Egyptian texts are more likely to have been caused by leprosy or varicose veins.

Researcher Michael Zimmerman, a visiting professor at Manchester University, said: ‘The virtual absence of malignancies in mummies must be interpreted as indicating their rarity in antiquity. This indicates that cancer-causing factors are limited to societies affected by modern industrialisation.’

The ancient Greeks were probably the first to define cancer as a specific disease and to distinguish between benign and malignant tumours.

But researchers said it was unclear if this signalled a real rise in the disease, or just a greater medical knowledge.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1320507/Cancer-purely-man-say-scientists-finding-trace-disease-Egyptian-mummies.html#ixzz12Q2QhQbI

Didn't people back then only live a very short time? Very few younger folks get cancer today.

The average life expectancy for the ancient Egyptians was about 33 years for men, as opposed to 29 years for women. This is based on skeletal evidence.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Life_expectancy_of_ancient_egyptians

I don't know if that is substantiated, but you may have hit the nail on the head there UG. I doubt there are (relatively speaking) many cancer sufferers of that sort of age today.

If you start smoking tobacco at age 40, it is highly unlikely that you will die of smoking related illness.

Didn't people back then only live a very short time? Very few younger folks get cancer today.

No, no... they lived much longer back then.

One of the most intriguing facts in the Bible is the immense life spans of the patriarchs before and just after the flood. Adam lived 930 years, Methuselah the longest lived of the patriarchs lived 969 years. Noah lived 950 years.

Cancer usually strikes at ages that people rarely reached in that era.

Just out of curiosity, can leukaemia be detected in human remains after that amount of time?

Didn't people back then only live a very short time? Very few younger folks get cancer today.

No, no... they lived much longer back then.

One of the most intriguing facts in the Bible is the immense life spans of the patriarchs before and just after the flood. Adam lived 930 years, Methuselah the longest lived of the patriarchs lived 969 years. Noah lived 950 years.

and they all begat numerous children even at an advanced age without the help of Messrs. Pfizer et al

One thing you have to take into consideration when dealing with average life expectancy is the infant mortality rate. Up until very recently the chances of a child surviving into adulthood were relatively low, but once they got over the 'hump' and acquired strong immune systems people could lead long, healthy lives.

If half the people die before they are 5 and the other half live until 80 then the average life expectancy is 45. This statistic doesn't really tell the whole story.