Word: excess
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...either foe or friend, depending on the way it travels through the body. Cholesterol's sinister image derives from the fact that much of the substance is swept through the bloodstream by potentially damaging carrier particles called LDLs (for low-density lipoproteins). LDLs are called "bad" cholesterol because an excess of cholesterol carried by them can lead to the buildup of harmful deposits in the arteries. The other cholesterol carriers, known as HDLs (for high-density lipoproteins), are considered "good" because, far from being killers, they may actually play a vital role in preventing heart disease. They seem...
...good and bad labels, however, can be simplistic and misleading. Pure cholesterol is a life-sustaining substance that plays an essential role in building cell membranes and sex hormones as well as aiding digestion. Problems begin when the body is saddled with an excess of LDL, which normally carries some 60% to 80% of the blood's total cholesterol. This excess can trigger the formation of plaque on the interior walls of the coronary arteries, a condition called atherosclerosis. In time, this hardened, sludge-filled growth narrows the artery and allows a clot to form, severely blocking the blood flow...
Just how HDL plays its apparently vital role in ridding the body of excess cholesterol is not entirely clear. The substance is, after all, only one element in an alphabet soup of particles that make up the so-called lipid transport system, which moves cholesterol through the bloodstream. Though individual cells can make their own cholesterol, much of their supply comes from the bloodstream, arriving from the liver aboard macromolecular ferryboats, known as very-low-density lipoproteins, or VLDLs. These carrier particles are loaded in the liver with cholesterol and dietary fats known as triglycerides, which are used by cells...
...buyout aroused anxieties even in the investment community, where some executives feared that the Johnson-initiated scramble would swallow up too much of the available money for deals and, moreover, give mergers and LBOs a bad name. "This is the sort of excess that investment bankers have worried about for years," said economist Robert Reich of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, "because it so clearly exposes the greed and rapaciousness of so many of these takeovers." Martin Weinstein, managing director of Kubera, a Wall Street arbitrage firm, concurred: "Do I sense fear? Yes. At some point there...
...that the pastoral mode is on its last legs today, weakened by irony and excess self-consciousness; although a vivid little tablet of color by Howard Hodgkin, In the Public Garden, Naples, 1981-82, argues that it can still be used without a false note. But this show leaves no doubt about how much it mattered to earlier generations of artists or how enduringly grounded in man's desire for consolation it proved...