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Viewpoint| Volume 82, ISSUE 1-2, P157-164, May 1990

The natural history of atherosclerosis: an ecologic perspective

  • Harold N. Mozar
    Correspondence
    Correspondence to: Harold N. Mozar, Chronic Disease Control Branch, California State Department of Health Services, 714 P. Street, P.O. Box 942732, Sacramento, CA 94234-7320, U.S.A. Phone: (916) 322-4787.
    Affiliations
    Chronic Diseases Control Branch, California State Department of Health Services, Sacramento, CA 94234-7320 U.S.A.
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  • Dileep G. Bal
    Affiliations
    Chronic Diseases Control Branch, California State Department of Health Services, Sacramento, CA 94234-7320 U.S.A.
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  • Saleem A. Farag
    Affiliations
    Chronic Diseases Control Branch, California State Department of Health Services, Sacramento, CA 94234-7320 U.S.A.
    Search for articles by this author
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/0021-9150(90)90154-B
The natural history of atherosclerosis: an ecologic perspective
Previous ArticleThe central nervous system and atherogenesis: role of the arterial smooth muscle cell
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      Abstract

      Virologic findings reported in recent atherosclerosis literature may have profound implications. To assess them, we have viewed atherosclerosis in a broad biologic context and against a background of environmental, behavioral, and social change. Reasonable grounds exist, we believe, for regarding atherosclerosis as a chronic, low-grade infectious macroangiopathy which is aggravated by hypercholesterolemia and other recognized risk factors. There are probably multiple infective pathogens and transmission routes. The putative agents that initiate atherosclerosis might include ubiquitous viruses that produce clinically unapparent infections in many animal species. Pathways for their transmission to humans may include the food chain and contaminated water. Food-chain transmission may have been largely responsible for the parallel increases of meat consumption and mortality from coronary heart disease in the United States during the middle third of the century. It provides a hypothetical basis for considering thermal intervention as a heretofore unrecognized factor that may actually best account for the surprising reversal of climbing heart disease mortality rates. Improved sanitation and food hygiene as well as improvements in diet, lifestyle, and medical care may have shaped the downward mortality curve. The virus hypothesis may reconcile apparent epidemiologic conflicts and elucidate the natural history of atherosclerosis.

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      Article info

      Publication history

      Accepted: February 1, 1990
      Received in revised form: January 17, 1990
      Received: August 13, 1989

      Identification

      DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0021-9150(90)90154-B

      Copyright

      © 1990 Published by Elsevier Inc.

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