system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why do small capillaries not clog up long before the larger arteries develop cholesterol blockage?
gpt
The 'clogging' is the body repairing inflammation in the artery wall. It appears to only happen in arteries where they are subjected to pulses of high pressure from the heart beating. Capillaries and veins don't experience those stresses and don't get the inflammation sites. Interestingly, if you take a vein and use it as an artery replacement in heart bypass surgery, then the vein *will* develop inflammation and start to "clog".