Peter Attia· MD
the way to think about atherosclerosis is kind of like the zits we get when we're teenagers and we get these pustules filled with oxidized triglycerides and ldl cholesterol then then then they attract the monocytes and the macrophages that elute these inflammatory markers and they thin out the collagen overlying the zit and it ruptures and you know and it drains and heals if it's a particularly bad zit you end up with a an acne scar for the rest of your life that same thing happens in your arteries underneath the skin of the artery the inside skin which is the endothelium you form these zits these pustules filled with nasty yellowish inflamed and these they get hot they rupture and instead of just draining they attract thrombi because they think there's a rent a hole in the in the vessel so a thrombus forms platelets and fibrinogen and over time you know it heals if you're lucky enough and mostly most time you are this happens time and time again through decades before it gets to the point where one ruptures and then completely closes it off but in the meanwhile every time you get one of those inflamed zits the ruptures you get the growth factors stimulate the growth of the smooth muscle and the collagen and uh and if it's a really bad zit you know eventually you'll calcify and those are fossil evidence of previous badly inflamed zits if you would so this is like really everyday common stuff but we know how to prevent it but going in with a balloon and addressing one little area and by the way tearing it up even worse it works if you're having a heart attack but most of the times we can we can regress those plaques we can melt the inflammation out of there with a lot of things we can talk about diet lifestyle and exercise keeping the lipids down and triglycerides down and we can't make the acne scars go away they're there forever once you have those calcium deposits but we can pretty much make the risk go away and that's why prevention is just so effective and so instrumental