On their standard American diet,

atherosclerosis, hardening of the arteries,

the number one killer of men and women starts in your teens. Investigators collected about 3,000 sets of coronary

arteries and aortaes, the main artery in the body, from accident, homicide, and suicide

victims, 15 to 34 years of age. And this is what they found. The fatty streaks starting

our teens, which turned into atherosclerotic plaques in our

20s, which get worse in our 30s, and can then start killing us off.

In our heart, it can cause a heart attack, in our brain, it can cause a stroke.

How common is this?

A hundred percent of the teens they looked at already had fatty streaks building

up inside their arteries, and by their early thirties, most already had streaks blossoming

into atherosclerotic plaques bulging into their arteries.

This is what their aorta's look like at ages 15 through 19.

Fattie streaks building up throughout, but no plaques yet on average.

But the plaques start appearing in their early 20s and get worse in their late 20s, by

which time fatty streaks have infiltrated throughout, and by our early 30s our arteries

are in bad shape. But that's our aorta, the main artery that plunges down through our torso to split off into our legs.

What about the coronary arteries feeding our heart?

Same thing.

We start out with fettie streaks in our teens, begin to see the first hint of plaque in our early 20s,

then late 20s,

then look at the average coronary arteries of 30 to 34-year-olds.

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