Word: fibrous
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Cholesterol has been portrayed as a kind of coronary time bomb. One study after another has shown that people with the highest concentration of the fatty molecule in their bloodstreams run the greatest risk of atherosclerosis. This is the buildup of fibrous fatty plaques in the blood vessels and a precursor of heart disease-the leading cause of death in the U.S. Hence, the reduction of blood (or serum) cholesterol has become a prime goal of doctors and patients alike. Still, physicians have been puzzled by one observation: though some patients show a seemingly dangerous level of serum cholesterol, they...
...shape of the pelvis tells clearly whether its erstwhile owner walked on all fours or stood erect. Teeth, which are frequently preserved because of their tough, protective enamel, tell even more. Animals that eat meat need teeth shaped to cut and slice; vegetarians need broad molars to chew their fibrous foods. Fossilized bones can indicate a creature's size and weight, just as the length of a thigh bone of a modern human can be used to accurately estimate his height. But often anthropologists must interpolate. Anatomists studying jawless skulls of Australopithecus robustus could not help noticing the creature...
...lasted five hours, Taylor was on the heart-lung machine, which maintains the patient's circulation, allowing his own heart to be stopped during the delicate operation. Only then did Barnard discover how desperate his condition had been: "His left ventricle was nothing but a bag of fibrous tissue." Barnard cut away 45% of this diseased heart muscle, partly to make room for the implant. He placed the donor heart piggyback on Taylor's own, left side to left side, and cut silver-dollar-size holes in the left atrium (upper chamber) of each. Then he stitched...
Inevitably, the alcoholic develops a fatty liver, and his chances of developing cirrhosis, a condition in which liver cells have been replaced by fibrous scar tissue, are at least one in ten. A severely damaged liver cannot adequately manufacture bile, which is necessary for the digestion of fats; as a consequence, the alcoholic often feels weak and suffers from chronic indigestion. This may be made worse by gastritis, which is caused by alcohol irritation of the sensitive linings of the stomach and small intestine. The troubles of a heavy drinker do not end there, and through damage to the central...
Atherosclerosis, a form of arteriosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, is a major cause of the heart disease that claims more than 1,000,000 American lives each year. Most doctors believe that fats like cholesterol are primarily responsible for the gradual arterial buildup of the hard, fibrous deposits that characterize the condition. A University of Washington pathologist offers a startlingly different explanation. Relegating cholesterol to a secondary role in heart disease, Dr. Earl Benditt suggests that atherosclerotic deposits, or plaques, may be derived from a single abnormal cell that multiplies into tumor-like growths...