QUOTE:  Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center had a mystery on their hands. A 51-year-old physician colleague who looked the picture of health—no cardiovascular risks, a marathon runner who had exercised vigorously each day for 30 years—had just flunked a calcium screening scan of his heart.

The patient had expected a score indicating a healthy cardiovascular system. Instead, the images indicated a high score: a build-up of calcium in his coronary arteries put him at high risk for blocked blood vessels and a possible heart attack.

The mystery was all the more intriguing because his resting blood pressure and fasting cholesterol levels, the usual measures of cardiovascular health, were in the normal range...

The researchers conclude that the physician’s intense, long-term exercise regime... contributed to his cardiovascular disease. "In this particular individual, we think that oxidative stress was an important contributor," says the study’s senior author, Michael Miller, M.D., director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center and associate professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "But we also found that this individual has exercise-induced hypertension, which I think is vastly under-diagnosed."

Oxidative stress is a byproduct of the normal cellular metabolism of oxygen. It refers to cell, tissue or organ damage from a class of molecules associated with oxygen metabolism, including unstable molecules called "free radicals." Oxidative stress plays a role in many heart, lung, blood and sleep disorders, including atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, hypertension, heart failure, asthma and sleep apnea...

...the patient was given vitamins C and E just before exercise and was tested again for endothelial response. These vitamins are known as antioxidants and may protect cells from free radical damage. This time, the test revealed a partial reversal of the blood vessel constriction after one hour, and normalization after two hours...  UNQUOTE.

Note that the vitamins C and E appeared to help, and that the only mechanism known is that they neutralize the free radicals generated from unsaturated fatty acids, especially polyunsaturated ones?  Why don't the researchers mention this?  They may not know, but why are they not doing the research?  It won't take anyone more than a few minutes of research to see what C and E do, and they should already know that unsaturated fatty acids can generate free radicals whereas saturated ones will not.

Source:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070315091100.htm