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No Smoothie
29 January 2015

No Smoothie

Heart disease kills more than twice the number of men than any other single disease in Britain, and trails in second place in women, just behind dementia. Yet, doctors still don't quite know what drives atherosclerosis – a heart-attack- and stroke-causing disease where blood vessel walls swell due to deposits of hard fatty plaque. Until recently, it was thought that only white blood cells contributed to the swelling when they swallow those fatty deposits and stick to the vessel lining. But the latest research suggests that hitherto unsuspected smooth muscle cells (pictured) inside vessel walls, where they regulate blood pressure by constricting flow, might also be adding to the disease. They’re suspected of behaving like white blood cells, ingesting and accumulating the plaque. Ending this behaviour gives researchers a new target in their search for treatments of atherosclerosis, which can lurk undetected for decades before striking, fatally.

Written by Tristan Farrow

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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