Normally, however, most atherosclerotic plaques are fairly undramatic. They grow silently and invisibly, gradually occluding the blood vessel until one day the obstruction, due to the plaque itself or a plaque-induced clot, becomes a problem. For example, a sedentary person may not notice that she has a partially blocked coronary artery until she goes outside to shovel snow. The sudden demands on her circulatory system can trigger ischemia (decreased blood delivery of oxygen) or infarction (tissue death from no blood flow)—or, in layman’s terms, a heart attack or a stroke. It may seem sudden,
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