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Show l Research speeds I attack on 1 heart disease Heart attack and stroke ' today's leading . cripplers and killers are not diseases at all but rather sudden and dramatic dra-matic events. The former is estimated to take 490,000 lives yearly, the latter 190,000. The st.ige is set for these events by a disease called atheroscler- I osis, known more commonly to laymen as "hardening of the arteries." What happens invites in-vites a comparison with the , slow build-up of lime inside a I water pipe. I With household plumbing, lime deposits can gradually f narrow and roughen the bore of the pipe until the flow of water is reduced to a mere trickle. Complete blockage may ensue if a sliver of lime breaks off and wedges itself in the narrowed passageway, or if it forms elsewhere and is transported by the flow of water wa-ter to the sit. While the analogy is imperfect, imper-fect, something very much like this occurs inside human arteries ar-teries of the heart or the brain to foreshadow either of these dreaded events, with fatty-like substances including cholestrol infiltrating the inner linings of these all-important passageways. |