tzi the Iceman had a predisposition to cardiovascular diseases and suffered from other ailments when he died in the Italian Alps. Researchers have decoded the 5,300-year-old's full genome and published their results.
tzi had brown hair and brown eyes - and if he hadn't been killed by an arrow millenia ago, he might have died of a heart attack shortly thereafter. These assertions were among many released in a study published in the journal Nature Communications on Wednesday, providing new details on the the so-called "Iceman."
The 5,300-year-old Copper Age man's remains were found in the tztal Alps in Italy in 1991, but since then continual research has been performed on the corpse. Teams from the universities of Saarland and Tbingen in Germany, and the European Academy of Bolzano (EURAC) finished sequencing his full genome 18 months ago.
Coronary risk
Based on the new genetic analysis, the researchers concluded that tzi was predisposed to cardiovascular diseases, and in fact he already showed some symptoms of arteriosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries.
"His genotype shows an increased risk by up to 40 percent of developing clinically evident coronary heart disease - independent from the classical risk factors," wrote Andreas Keller of Saarland University, one of the paper's co-authors.
For the researchers, this was significant for the implications it could have in modern medicine, according to study co-author and Institute for Mummies and the Iceman paleogeneticist Angela Graefen.
"From an archaeological point of view, the general idea is that heart disease is a modern disease with risk factors that include not enough exercise," she told DW. "But these didn't apply to the Iceman, radiological examinations have shown he had a lot of exercise and his muscle development showed he did a lot of mountain walking."
tzi's complete genome was mapped 18 months ago
Researchers also found solid evidence that there was a genetic predisposition to cardiovascular disease.
Original post:
Iceman genetic analysis reveals new health insights