Medical Breakthrough on the horizon?

As Paul Harvey would say, "it sure is an exciting time to be alive!"

Until now the best we can hope to do in preventing heart attacks and strokes has been to try and make sure our blood is not full of fat and bad cholesterol that will lead to clogs where there are bumps on the arterial walls. These bumps act like a low hanging tree in a river and cause a blockage.

This may change as doctors appear reasonably close to being able to prevent many of the bumps (or mounds as they call them) from occurring in the first place! Wow! From the Guardian:

"A project led by Professor John Martin of University College, London, is designed to tackle the world's heart disease crisis and stems from a 10-year collaboration between Finnish, German, Italian and British researchers.

The group - whose work was recently highlighted at the European Commission's Descartes Prize awards in Prague - has concentrated on a substance called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a natural body chemical that stops arterial cell division....'If we stop the mounds in the first place, then cholesterol will have nothing to stick to and no blockages will occur.' The solution, said Martin, is to persuade the body to make extra VEGF."