Insights into human hypertension: the role of endothelial dysfunction.

Atherosclerosis is considered an ubiquitous pathological process. In patients symptomatic for coronary artery or carotid or peripheral arterial disease, other localizations – still asymptomatic – of atherosclerotic lesions are often found. Despite this consideration, the patterns of arteries developing atherosclerosis can be quite diverse: for example, lesions prevalently develop in regions where the flow is either low or turbulent such as where artery bifurcates, mammalian artery are nearly unaffected by atherosclerosis. 1