6 thoughts on “Associated Press shocked to learn that atherosclerosis is natural”

  1. The plaques that form in atherosclerosis have been found to invariably incorporate Immuniglobulin M (IgM), an antibody that immune cells (B-lymphocytes, so-called B-1 cells) produce in response to infection. It appears that atherosclerosis may be triggered by an infectious disease. If so, a vaccine against heart disease is feasible.
    Check your assumptions at the door.

  2. Heh. In the early 1970’s, I read a book about heart surgeons and it said that autopsies from the Korean War had identified atherosclerosis in soldiers in their early twenties.
    It’s still possible that diet may facilitate atherosclerosis and it’s still possible that some people are “diet-sensitive”, if I can create a term — as individuals, they may be more prone to atherosclerosis related to their diets. After all, some people are relatively insensitive to smoking health hazards and some seem more so.

  3. Great title, Steve! The “AP” is shocked to learn … what the medical literature has known since at least the 1950s, when Keys performed actual angiographic and autopsy examinations of 23,000 sets of coronary arteries and found no correlation between “obesity” or diet and atherosclerosis. Heart disease has always been a disease of aging. What is interesting about this mummy study published in Lancet is that they found atherosclerosis among the mummies, even though only 7 of the 137 were believed to have possibly reached even 60 years of age (and 33 reached ages in their 50s), and the mummies came from varying cultures and widely diverse diets. The degree of atherosclerosis was directly related to the age of the mummies. As the authors concluded: “The presence of atherosclerosis in premodern human beings suggests that the disease is an inherent component of human ageing and not characteristic of any specific diet or lifestyle.”

    But don’t expect the facts to change the political agenda of HHS; the government is not about scientific credibility or integrity.

  4. They were amazed to find that if humans managed to get past the things that killed them early, they were susceptible to the same problems with aging that we have? Heart disease has always seemed to be something old folks got. The definition of “old folks” seems to be changing the longer I hang around.

  5. How decadent. NHS patients are dying waiting for CT scans, and the Brits are scanning the dead.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Discover more from JunkScience.com

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading