The U.K. Daily Mail reports: “Cancer is a man-made disease fueled by the excesses of modern life, a study of ancient remains has found. Tumors 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.

Michael Zimmerman, a visiting professor at Manchester University, said: ‘In an ancient society lacking surgical intervention, evidence of cancer should remain in all cases. The virtual absence of malignancies in mummies must be interpreted as indicating their rarity in antiquity, indicating that cancer-causing factors are limited to societies affected by modern industrialization.’ …Despite slivers of tissue from hundreds of Egyptian mummies being rehydrated and placed under the microscope, only one case of cancer has been confirmed. This is despite experiments showing that tumors should be even better preserved by mummification than healthy tissues.”