We read with interest Randall Thompson and colleagues' report (April 6, p 1211), and we think it requires some clarifications. First, the percentages of diagnosed atherosclerosis (38% of ancient Egyptians, 25% of ancient Peruvians, 40% of Ancestral Puebloans, and 60% of Unangan hunter-gatherers) seem too high for preindustrial communities, especially for hunter-gatherers who did not show evidence of atherosclerosis in previous studies. These civilisations did intense physical activity and followed a diet rich in vegetables and seafood, free from saturated fats, and therefore with low risk of developing atherosclerosis.
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