Artery Plaque Composition- Contradiction?

Hello, and thank you for your medical question on e Health Forum.

The initial deposits that form the atherosclerotic plaque consists of the cholesterol.

This over time gets consolidated due to inclusion of platelets and blood cells to become a atherosclerotic thrombus.

Over time, as the plaque size, increases the tissue gets thickened and organised, calcium deposits occur.

Hence the main factor that causes plaque formation is high blood cholesterol and not calcium.

Hence it is advised to lower blood cholesterol.

I hope this helps.

Thank you for your answer. Interesting.

So then why do people with low cholesterol still develop artery plaque, and some people with high cholesterol have clear arteries?

What about the Greenland Inuits? They had high levels of total cholesterol (Mean 240) and very High levels of "bad" cholesterol ( mean 170) yet they had one of the lowest death rates from CAD of any population.

Granted the Inuits had high HDL (Mean 62) and they consumed a diet rich in marine oils, but they had high cholesterol by todays guidelines.

So how can we say high cholesterol is the main factor that causes plaque formation when world populations demonstrate otherwise?

"So then why do people with low cholesterol still develop artery plaque, and some people with high cholesterol have clear arteries?"

My reading about this lately is pointing to inflammation as a driving factor. With no chronic inflammation present the cholesterol can happily do it's important jobs. When there is inflammation then the cholesterol becomes stuck in the arterial walls forming plaques.