That's because the arteries get clogged with clumps of fat, cholesterol and other material, called atherosclerotic plaques.

CNN: Claudication

That is the 'bad' cholesterol which forms atherosclerotic lesions, the fatty deposits which narrow the arteries and lead to heart disease.

BBC: NEWS | Health | Pomegranates: the fruity panacea

Lutetium-texaphyrin has proved successful in shrinking atherosclerotic lesions in leg arteries.

ECONOMIST: Medicinal light-swords

After consuming the tomatoes along with a high-fat and high-calorie diet, there were a number of signs suggesting a beneficial effect, including significantly lower levels of inflammation, higher levels of the antioxidant paraoxonase, higher HDL levels, and less atherosclerotic plaque.

FORBES: Early Look: New Methods To Enhance Cholesterol Efflux

First, using antibiotics to treat an atherosclerotic patient who has had one heart attack reduces the risk of his suffering a second. (Rheumatoid arthritis, the most common arthritic variety, also responds to antibiotics in some patients, leading researchers to suspect that it, too, may sometimes be provoked by bacteria.) Second, research has come up with the glimmer of a mechanism.

ECONOMIST: Bugged by disease