Word: intima
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...process begins, they report, with the laying down of the familiar chalky and fatty material, largely cholesterol, inside the artery (see diagram). Then, by processes not yet understood, an "abscess" forms either within the artery's innermost layer (intima) or between the intima and the middle layer (media) of the three-ply artery wall. But this is no ordinary abscess, filled with pus. It is a special, possibly unique type, containing the debris of broken-down cells from the blood and the artery walls, a fatty paste, crystals of cholesterol, and calcium...
When thus deposited, Keys says that cholesterol is mainly responsible for the arterial blockages that culminate in heart attacks. Explains Keys: As the fatty protein molecules travel in the bloodstream, they are deposited in the intima, or inner wall of a coronary artery. The proteins and fats are burned off, and the cholesterol is left behind. As cholesterol piles up, it narrows, irritates and damages the artery, encouraging formation of calcium deposits and slowing circulation. Eventually, says Keys, one of two things happens. A clot forms at the site, seals off the flow of blood to the heart and provokes...
...Question of Cholesterol. The hottest of all arguments is over cholesterol. For the last decade or so, some researchers have been casting this fatty alcohol as the villain. It is the predominant substance found in the plaques and patches that form on the roughened inner wall (intima) of the artery, and the amount circulating in the blood is in some rough proportion to the fats in the diet. So it is temptingly simple to draw the conclusion that the dietary fat starts the trouble and the cholesterol finishes it when it has built up deposits-which may also become calcified...
...humans grow older, the innermost layer (intima) of the arteries, ordinarily a thin, smooth membrane, tends to roughen and thicken in a process that may be compared to what happens when deposits of lime accumulate inside a water pipe. This change in the arterial wall is known generally as atherosclerosis...
...result of the thickening and roughening of the intima is to impede, or even stop, the passage of blood through the artery in which the condition exists. As the volume and surge of the blood decrease, a clot may form, often quite suddenly, around one of the rough projections that has grown on the arterial wall. The clot is a thrombus, the process of its formation is thrombosis, and if it happens in one of the coronary arteries, it is coronary thrombosis (while there are medical distinctions in their precise use, the terms "coronary occlusion" and "cardiac infarction" are generally...