When I first met her, Janet couldn't stop sobbing. She'd just been through her 10th heart catheterization in two years.
It started with chest pains at age 56, prompting her first heart catheterization that uncovered severe atherosclerotic blockages in all three coronary arteries. Her cardiologist advised a bypass operation.
Six months after the bypass operation, Janet was back with more chest pains, just as bad as before. Another heart catherization showed that two of the three bypass grafts had failed. The third bypass graft contained a severe blockage that required a stent, along with multiple stents in the two now unbypassed arteries.
In the ensuing 18 months, Janet returned for 8 additional catheterizations, each time leaving the hospital with one or more stents.
Janet's doctor was puzzled as to why her disease was progressing so aggressively despite Lipitor and the low-fat diet provided by the hospital dietitian. So he had Janet undergo lipoprotein testing (NMR):
LDL particle number: 3363 nmol/L
Small LDL particle number: 2865 nmol/L
HDL cholesterol: 32 mg/dl
Triglycerides: 344 mg/dl
Fasting blood glucose 118 mg/dl
HbA1c 5.8%
Unfortunately, Janet's doctor didn't understand what these values meant. He pretty much threw his arms up in frustration. That's when I met Janet.
Comment: For more information on Vegetarianism, see this Sott links:
The Naive Vegetarian
Burying The Vegetarian Hypothesis