Just finished watching the show, good CE and it was superbly done. It was called The Hidden Epidemic (i think).
One part I found interesting was the discussion on the cause of atherosclerosis. Here's my understanding of it...many people believed for years that clogged arteries were just caused by plaque sticking to and clogging up the inside of an artery. Fairly recently, they started doing tiny little ultrasounds to the inside of arteries and they found that plaque was building up outside (not on the inside as previously thought) the walls of the artery but still allowing blood to flow just fine through the center of the artery. But it was very deadly because the plaque outside the artery is treated as a foreign body and chemicals would initiate an immune response causing white blood cells to attack the foreign body (plaque) and get stuck and then actually cause an increase in the overall plaque size and eventually weaken the walls of the artery. Eventually, the walls would crack under the pressure and this exposed tissue would cause a big clot to form which ended up being the cause for approximately 70% of MIs.
Anyway, hope that made sense. I'd love to get some input on this and it's a shame they don't teach it in this detail to paramedics. If you get a chance, definitely watch the show because they do the best job I've seen so far of explaining it.
