Atherosclerosis means, literally, "scarring of the arteries".
Scarring is a consequence of injury.
Hence atherosclerosis should be regarded as a consequence of injury to the lining of the vascular system.
it is in all liklihood the result of chronic, perhaps life-long, inflammation caused by;
1) Irritation by substances in our diet which were largely absent in the pre-industrial world, notably mass-produced, refined/processed and over-heated unsaturated seed-oils.
2) periodic infection, caused by persistently raised blood sugar which is an unavoidable consequence of eating carbohydrates (particularly fast digesting, refined ones, and not least pure sugar) while leading a sedentary life style (blood-borne infection is a major symptom of diabetes) **
This inflammation (and infection) is largely symptom-free in younger people, and can only be diagnosed with specifically designed tests, which is not done (although anyone could buy a blood-sugar testing kit if they wanted, and many, if not most, would confirm that they are spending a large proportion of their lives with raised blood-sugar).
Asserting that the constituents of the scarring (no, it is NOT “plaque”, the stuff Ancel Keys managed to get his rabbits to accumulate in their blood-vessels by putting cholesterol in their food) are the CAUSE of atherosclerosis is idiotic, bass-ackwards reasoning, and easily falsified.
(BTW, cholesterol is a primary ‘building block’ of all scar-tissue, which is why serum-cholesterol drops precipitously after serious injury as it is ‘sequestered’ to the injury site)
Statins cause great harm in blocking the synthesis of cholesterol, CQ10 and other molecules.
However, they also have a powerful anti-inflammatory effect, which accounts for the observed slight decrease, a few percent, in deaths from heart-attack over periods of, say, 5-10 years (the typical duration of a “long term” drug trial) in study groups of people with existing vascular disease or a known, congenital predisposition to it. These numbers are then extrapolated to higher ones for commensurately longer periods of time.
But further, this difference of a few percent between groups taking and not taking statins is misrepresented thus; for the sake of argument, let's say it’s 3% vs. 4.5%, this will always be referred to as a "50 percent increase in survival" (4.5 / 3 = 1.5) making it sound much more significant than it is. This “statistical semantics” even takes in a lot of “experts” who should know better – but as Benjamin Disraeli said; “lies, damned lies and statistics”.
** In the pre-industrial world, people typically lead much more physically strenuous lives. The Roman army "marched on its stomach", largely eating grains, bread etc'. Ditto agricultural labourers, and so on - in fact all but the elites, who tended NOT to eat such bland, 'affordable' foods. But physical exertion 'burns' blood-sugar as it is absorbed from the gut, thus maintaining relatively normal levels. That isn’t to say that vascular disease was unknown – I gather evidence of it has been found in Egyptian mummies.
For those who need a refresher in high-school nutrition, food consists basically of proteins, fats and carbohydrates (starches and sugars). The ONLY pathway for the digestion and absorption of carbohydrate is via breaking it down (in the gut) into sugar whence passes into the blood. We can, of course, synthsise sugar from fats and vice versa elsewhere in the body.
) was simply to illustrate the cost differences of drugs in the US vs. countries with national health care.
