Atherosclerosis, which Aajonus used interchangeably with the term arteriosclerosis throughout his teachings, is defined as hardened fat build-up in the arteries. The condition represents a progressive crystallization and dehydration of certain fats that have been incorporated into the arterial walls and surrounding tissues, causing those structures to lose their natural flexibility, fluidity, and ion-exchange capacity.

Aajonus was emphatic that this condition is fundamentally misunderstood by conventional medicine and the food industry, and that virtually everything the public has been told about what causes it is precisely backwards. He taught that the hardened plaques and deposits found in atherosclerosis are not made of animal fats, they are made of crystallized vegetable oils and processed hydrogenated fats that the human body is constitutionally incapable of keeping in a fluid, usable state.

He described the condition mechanically: when a fat molecule loses its capacity for ion exchange, meaning it can no longer fluidly interact with surrounding biochemical structures, swell, contract, or change shape, it becomes permanently fixed in whatever configuration it hardened into. Over time, spanning decades, this locked fat molecule becomes progressively more brittle, more glass-like, more solid. In arterial tissue, this manifests as thickening, rigidity, and plaque buildup that narrows the lumen of the vessel, forcing the heart to pump blood at higher pressure and velocity to move the same volume of blood through a reduced opening.

He further specified that when a cooked or hydrogenated fat is incorporated into the cell structure of an artery, the arterial wall has a replacement cycle of approximately six years. But the crystallized vegetable oil within those cells begins hardening within three years, well before the cell can be replaced. At that point, the body cannot dissolve or break down the hardened substance, so it continues to accumulate, layer upon layer, thickening the plaque and narrowing the vessel.

He used a vivid analogy to illustrate this: raw animal fat, when placed in soil, will mold and decompose, feeding and enriching the earth. Vegetable oil, when placed in soil, turns the soil into rock within six to ten months. He said this is precisely what vegetable oil does inside the human body, it petrifies tissue. Pressed vegetable oils, when mixed in nature, turn into a rock like amber, he pointed to amber itself as an example: it was once the fat resin of a tree that, over time, became stone. That is the same process occurring in arteries when vegetable oils are eaten.

He stated clearly: "All that hardening of the arteries and all this nonsense about cholesterol is all myth again, created by the vegetable industry that did not prove their assumptions."

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Aajonus taught that the root cause of atherosclerosis is the consumption of pressed vegetable oils, including safflower oil, olive oil, flax oil, and especially hydrogenated vegetable oils (margarine), in a body that operates at too low a temperature to keep these oils in a fluid state.

He explained the physiology of this in precise terms:

Herbivores, animals whose natural diet consists of vegetation and vegetable matter, have a body temperature ranging from 101 to 105 degrees Fahrenheit, with some sources he cited extending to 108 degrees. At these elevated temperatures, vegetable oils remain fluid and in constant exchange of water and fat molecules, keeping the system lubricated. The herbivore's digestive tract is also far more complex than the human digestive tract, two and a half times longer, with specialized chambers, giving them the enzymatic and mechanical capacity to break down vegetable fats.

Human body temperature, by contrast, is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit and typically runs even lower. Aajonus stated that the only time a human body reaches temperatures sufficient to begin melting crystallized vegetable oils is during a fever, and fevers are infrequent, brief, and not sustained long enough to address the accumulated crystallization. He pointed out that humans also do not possess the enzymes required to properly break down vegetable oils.

The consequence: when a human being eats vegetable oil, and that oil becomes incorporated into the cellular structure of arteries, bones, tendons, cartilage, or any other tissue with a multi-year replacement cycle, the oil begins to crystallize and dehydrate within that cell over a period of roughly one to five years. Once crystallized, the body cannot dissolve it. The crystal grows, becomes denser, and hardens progressively until, at the extreme, it has the density of glass or stone.

He stated: "Vegetable oils crystallize in the human body. That's what causes hardening of the heart and arteries. Not animal fat. That's a myth. A fiction."

He elaborated on the timeline: arterial walls take six years to replace their cellular structure. Vegetable oil crystallizes within three years of being incorporated. That three-year gap means that every arterial cell partially or fully built from vegetable oil contains hardened, non-exchanging crystal before it can be naturally replaced, ensuring the plaque continues to accumulate.

Aajonus placed particular emphasis on hydrogenated vegetable oils, margarine being the primary example, as the most destructive form. He explained that the hydrogenation process gives vegetable oils the same molecular structure as plastic. He stated: "That's how you make plastic." He described it as styrofoam, the same material that was used in ice cream and marshmallows. In the human body, hydrogenated vegetable oil is essentially plastic being incorporated into the tissue. The body cannot digest it, cannot break it down, cannot utilize it. It simply accumulates and hardens.

He said that 86% of multiple sclerosis is caused by hydrogenated vegetable oils crystallizing in the nervous system, and the same crystallization process in arterial tissue produces atherosclerosis.

He traced the historical origin of the problem: before the 1950s, humans ate primarily lard, butter, and animal fats. Heart disease was a rarity, it occurred almost exclusively among the wealthy who could afford pressed oils and refined products. Among common people who ate traditional animal fats, arterial hardening barely existed. Then margarine came to market after World War II, initially as a product the vegetable oil industry wanted to sell. Almost simultaneously, the narrative emerged that animal fats were causing heart disease. Within ten years of margarine's widespread adoption, heart disease began rising exponentially. Heart disease is now the leading cause of death, not because of animal fat, but because of the very product sold as the "healthy" alternative.

He said: "They were the culprits selling the thing that was going to raise arteriosclerosis and heart disease to an enormous rate, vegetable oils cause your hardening of the arteries and the hardening of the heart."

While animal fats are far superior to vegetable oils and do not cause atherosclerosis even when cooked, Aajonus also taught that heating any fat above 96 degrees Fahrenheit outside the body begins to alter its molecular structure. He specified 96°F as the threshold, below which a fat retains its raw, exchangeable properties; above which structural damage begins.

He taught that a cooked fat molecule, even from an animal source, loses its capacity for ion exchange. Clay is his central analogy: raw clay is malleable, porous, can absorb and release moisture, changes shape. Once fired in a kiln at high temperature, it becomes rigid, glass-like, non-porous, permanently fixed. The same transformation happens to fat molecules when they are heated. A raw fat molecule is constantly exchanging ions, staying fluid, adapting. A cooked fat molecule is frozen in the shape it took when it was heated, and will remain in that shape for the rest of its time in the body.

He said: "In a period of 10 to 50, 60 years in the body, it hardens like a crystal, just like glass, just like if you fired clay at a very high temperature. No wonder people get a hardening of the arteries and cracked veins, split their brain cells, get aneurysms, because you're eating cooked fats that cannot exchange ions and are doomed to become brittle in your body."

However, he consistently drew a distinction between cooked animal fats and hydrogenated vegetable oils in terms of severity. Tribes eating exclusively cooked animal meats and fats, in New Guinea, Borneo, northern Thailand, Australia, do not get atherosclerosis or heart disease at all. Their worst diseases are gout, arthritis, rheumatism, some osteoporosis, and kidney and bladder irritation. This demonstrates that even cooked animal fat does not produce the kind of crystallization and arterial hardening that vegetable oils produce.

He stated: "Even with their cooked meats and all they eat is animal fats, no vegetable oils, they have no heart disease and no arteriosclerosis."

He also noted that even these cooked-meat tribes, some of whom are cannibals, have some arteriosclerosis, but "no hardening of any tissue." He used this to illustrate that whatever minor degree of arteriosclerosis appears in cooked-meat-eating populations is minimal and non-pathological compared to what occurs in populations consuming vegetable oils.

In one exchange, Aajonus identified a related but distinct mechanism: when sugars are improperly metabolized (as in diabetics or those with insulin dysregulation), they break down arterial and capillary tissue. The body then sends fats in to heal the damaged tissue. If those fats are solid fats, i.e., crystallized vegetable oils or cooked animal fats, they will cause occlusions in the weakened areas. However, he was clear that in this scenario, the sugar damage is the first cause, and the fat involvement is a secondary healing attempt that goes wrong because of the nature of the fat employed.

Aajonus devoted extensive teaching to dismantling the cholesterol-atherosclerosis narrative. He taught that:

• Foods do not contain cholesterol, with the exception of blood, unless we eat blood. All cholesterols are manufactured by the body from food, especially from fats.
• The body manufactures 60 to 65 varieties of cholesterol, and not one of them is inherently bad. All have specific functions.
• Of these 60 varieties, roughly 20 serve to cleanse the body, 20 serve to provide energy (fat being the most calorie-dense fuel at two and a half times the energy density of carbohydrates or protein), and 20 serve to protect, lubricate, and sustain the body's structures.
• When a person eats raw fats, the body does not construct "bad" cholesterol. Bad cholesterol, lipid peroxides and other toxic byproducts, is only constructed from cooked fats, margarine, and processed oils.
• High cholesterol levels on the Primal Diet are expected, normal, and beneficial, because elevated cholesterol typically means the body is actively removing old, stored, toxic cholesterol from tissues and moving it through the blood and out via the urine. Half of the cholesterol in blood at any given time may be old toxic cholesterol in transit, leaving the body, plus the new, healthy cholesterol from current food intake. Treating this as pathological is, in Aajonus's view, like calling a cleaning crew a sign of more dirt.

He cited specific cases to illustrate that high cholesterol is not correlated with atherosclerosis or heart disease:

• A Hall of Fame professional basketball player maintained a cholesterol level of 672 to 680 throughout his career, and when it dropped to 400 or 500 on medication, he could not function. He outplayed men decades younger than him.
• An Olympic gymnast maintained cholesterol levels of 324 to 375. When the medical establishment took her off cholesterol-supporting foods and lowered her levels, she could not work out, had no strength, and fell ill constantly with colds and flu every three to six weeks. When put on the raw fat diet and her cholesterol allowed to remain high, she won medals and did not get sick.
• Aajonus himself had cholesterol in the range of 370 to 390 when he was very ill, and as he healed, it came down to 205, sometimes 197, still high by medical standards, but accompanied by excellent health.
• He checked his cholesterol at Washington University Medical School in St. Louis and found it "sky high", but there was "no hardening of the arteries, no problems."

He said: "The higher your cholesterol, the better," and "Forget those cholesterol levels."

He specifically dismissed the LDL/HDL distinction as a political retreat by the pharmaceutical industry from the failed "all cholesterol is bad" narrative, a way to claim partial credit for a failed hypothesis rather than admit total error.

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Atherosclerosis sits squarely at the intersection of multiple philosophical pillars in Aajonus's framework:

Cooked Food / Processed Food: The direct cause is cooked and processed vegetable oils. This is a disease of industrialized food production, it did not exist at meaningful rates before pressed vegetable oils were commercially manufactured.

Terrain Theory: The arterial wall is a living tissue with a replacement cycle of six years. When that tissue is built from materials that cannot maintain biological fluidity, crystallized vegetable oils, the terrain itself becomes pathological. The plaque is not an infection, not a microbial process, not a deficiency of medication, it is a terrain problem created by feeding the body the wrong building materials.

Root Cause: The root cause is the introduction of pressed vegetable oils into the food supply and the simultaneous removal of traditional animal fats, combined with a fraudulent marketing campaign that inverted the causation.

Sovereignty / How to Live: Aajonus consistently framed the atherosclerosis narrative as an example of deliberate misinformation by the vegetable oil industry, which needed to create fear around competing animal fats in order to market their new products. He said the science was never done, the assumptions were never proved, and Harvard eventually admitted (two to three years before some of his workshops) that "people on fat-free diets get 36% more disease." He named this as fraud.

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Aajonus listed the following as symptoms associated with atherosclerosis:

• High blood pressure: Aajonus reframed this not as a dangerous pathology in itself, but as a necessary compensatory mechanism. When arteries are narrowed by plaque, the body must increase blood pressure and blood velocity to maintain adequate flow. He said: "I am for higher velocity flow because it is a symptom that something causing it to be necessary. I agree with eliminating the cause but not simply reducing velocity with medication that can cause strokes." He said a person is much more likely to have a stroke while taking blood pressure medication than while simply having high blood pressure. He was emphatic: "Doctors telling you high blood pressure bad is an absolute lie. It's fraud." He specified that if you have congestive arteries and are carrying extra weight pressing on your veins, high blood pressure is normal and necessary.
• Pink or flushed complexion: A physical sign of the cardiovascular strain associated with increased blood velocity.
• Deep grooves across the nails: A physical diagnostic indicator of the condition.
• Difficulty urinating: Associated symptom.
• Feeling very bloated: Systemic symptom.
• Making faces at sour foods: A behavioral/sensory symptom.
• Viewing life as overwhelming: An emotional/psychological symptom in his framework.
• Making or seeming to make little headway although working hard: A functional/psychological correlate.
• Fussing over nothing: Behavioral manifestation.

Aajonus distinguished between high blood pressure/velocity as a necessary adaptive response versus the actual danger: plaque that is made of hardened crystallized fats that could break away from the arterial wall in large enough chunks to form a clot. He said: "High blood pressure and high blood velocity do not cause strokes or heart attacks." The danger is specifically a large chunk of the wrong kind of plaque breaking free and causing a physical obstruction.

He noted that three people he personally knew who had strokes while partially following his Primal Diet were heavy consumers of regular bread, suggesting it was the processed grain/starch component rather than the meat-and-fat component that contributed to their events.

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Aajonus prescribed:

The Drink for Moisturizing and Lubrication: to be consumed daily. This is the foundational daily remedy for atherosclerosis.

Mineral water: 2 to 4 cups of good mineral water daily.

Raw fat with most foods: Eating plenty of raw fat with the majority of meals, as a gradual corrective measure. This is the primary long-term intervention.

Aajonus specified that raw animal fats are the correct building material for arterial tissue, because raw fats continuously exchange ions as long as they are in a warm living body. This means arterial tissue built from raw animal fat remains flexible, fluid, and adaptive throughout the cell's lifespan. He listed the following raw animal fats as specifically beneficial:

• Unsalted raw butter: He specifically mentioned a client who had high cholesterol and was put on a stick of raw butter per day, with beneficial results. He recommended coconut cream and raw butter as a combination for arterial health.
• Raw cream: Paired with coconut cream in the protocol for arterial plaque removal.
• Coconut cream: He stated explicitly that "coconut cream helps remove arterial plaquing quicker." He recommended it both as a daily food and specifically as part of the plaque-removal protocol.
• Eggs: Mentioned both as a fat source and as part of general cardiovascular protocols. Egg yolks are described as a "wonderful fat source."

This is the most specific and detailed intervention Aajonus described for actively dissolving existing arterial plaque.

He reported his own personal experience as the primary evidence:

He had documented plaque in his right carotid artery dating back to at least age 12 to 15.5 years old, with the earliest measurable reading of PSV 223 cm/sec and EDV 76 cm/sec. Over years of eating the Primal Diet, his readings gradually improved, reaching a low of PSV 168 cm/sec and EDV 49 cm/sec in tests from February 24, 2007. However, significant buildup remained, at approximately 20% obstruction of the carotid artery.

He used Life Line Screening's ultrasound service, going every three to four years, and found the tests safe (ultrasound is only harmful if done more than twice in a six-month period, or to a fetus more than once every five weeks for more than four minutes at a time).

Deciding to actively address the plaque, he began consuming raw apple cider vinegar. His protocol:

• Dose: One tablespoon at a time
• Frequency: Approximately 30 times over the course of approximately one year (roughly once every 12 days, though not on a fixed schedule)
• Total consumed: Approximately 30 tablespoons over roughly 11 months

Results: His carotid artery ultrasound at the follow-up screening (tests of 8/4/2011) returned: - Left Carotid Artery: Normal - Right Carotid Artery: Normal - No Atrial Fibrillation - No Aneurysm - Peripheral Arterial condition: Normal

The plaque that had been present since at least age 15.5, and possibly from age 12, had been completely resolved. The plaque that had persisted for over 47 years cleared within one year of this vinegar protocol.

He also used clay alongside the vinegar during this period, sometimes combining the two together.

Dosing guidance for different body sizes: - Large person: Two tablespoons of vinegar at a time (he implied this as an upward adjustment from the one-tablespoon dose he used personally) - He stated it doesn't matter whether the vinegar is raw or pasteurized apple cider vinegar for this purpose, though he personally used raw

Aajonus identified pineapple as a food that helps remove plaque, specifically stating "another food that helps remove plaque is citrus, especially pineapple." He also mentioned it in the context of the arteriosclerosis cross-reference.

However, he issued a specific caution: overeating pineapple can cause extreme emotionality. He stated this explicitly.

Pineapple protocol for arterial buildup removal: - Quantity: Only 1 ounce per day when eating daily for the purpose of removing arterial buildup - Fat pairing required: Must be eaten with a raw fat. He specified two options: - Option 1: 3 to 4 tablespoons coconut cream plus 1 tablespoon raw cream - Option 2: 1 teaspoon no-salt raw butter (as the fat pairing) - He stated in one passage: "Pineapple is good for that with coconut cream." The "that" in context was arterial plaque in the context of varicose vein and arterial health.

In a direct Q&A response regarding a woman whose mother had stents placed in two arteries (one 80% blocked, one 65% blocked), Aajonus outlined this protocol:

• 3 tablespoons raw unheated honey
• 1 tablespoon raw apple cider vinegar
• 2 and ¼ ounces mineral water
• Frequency: 3 times a day for two months, then twice a day for two months, then once a day forever
• Additional: Eat plenty of eggs alongside this protocol

He mentioned "cheese and honey are very good for that" in the context of varicose veins and arterial/capillary thickening.

Under heart conditions, Aajonus listed these foods as part of gradually restoring the heart, with the cross-reference back to atherosclerosis/arteriosclerosis.

He mentioned a high raw meat diet in the context of cardiovascular health generally, particularly for conditions like hemophilia where the heart is affected, and consistently emphasized that raw meat does not cause and will not worsen atherosclerosis.

For varicose veins and arterial/capillary congestion, he recommended placing hot water bottles at the affected limb and wrapping them with a towel (loosely, not tightly) to tent the heat into the area, stating: "Heat will allow more circulation into the area. More circulation means more nutrients."

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Aajonus stated that drinking 2 to 4 cups of good mineral water and eating plenty of raw fat with most foods "gradually corrects this problem." He did not specify an exact timeline for gradual correction through dietary change alone, but implied it is a slow, progressive process.

The Primal Diet itself, when maintained consistently, gradually helps the body remove plaque over time. He cited his own carotid artery readings as evidence: his numbers improved progressively from the early 2000s through 2007 as he continued eating his Primal Diet, even without specific interventions. His lowest reading of PSV 168 cm/sec and EDV 49 cm/sec in February 2007 showed improvement from his highest reading of PSV 223 cm/sec and EDV 76 cm/sec (documented from age 15.5 onward), demonstrating that the diet alone, over years, was gradually reducing the buildup.

He specifically identified the arterial wall replacement cycle as six years. This means that the minimum time frame for complete arterial tissue renewal, replacing all arterially-incorporated fats with new, raw-fat-derived tissue, is approximately six years of eating correctly. However, plaque already accumulated on the walls is a separate matter from the wall tissue itself and requires active intervention to dissolve.

He stated that vegetable oil incorporated into cells takes approximately "one year to five year period" to crystallize and harden. This means that every year of vegetable oil consumption adds to the crystallized burden that must eventually be addressed. Someone who consumed vegetable oils for decades would have proportionally more accumulated crystallized material to resolve.

The most striking timeline data point in Aajonus's teachings is his own experience: plaque that had been present from at least age 12 to 15.5 (and documented for approximately 47 years) resolved in under one year using approximately 30 tablespoons of raw apple cider vinegar. He said: "I went back the next year and that carotid artery was all clean. It had been dirty since I was at least 15 and a half all the way till I was 62 years old, and in one year, who knows how long it took, but only had 30 tablespoons of vinegar that year and had dissolved it."

He described the plaque as having been completely gone at the August 4, 2011 screening, eleven months after the previous tests that still showed abnormal plaque buildup.

He extrapolated from his own experience to general guidance: "So I figured that people have a lot of plaque in their arteries and their intestines, that's a way to clean out some of that plaquing no matter where it is, so at the raw apple cider vinegar, if you're a large person, two tablespoons of vinegar a time."

He stated that on the Primal Diet, "especially as you're eating the new raw fats, you're going to double the cholesterol level. It will happen for a while, but then after three or four years it will go up again." This is because the body is simultaneously producing new healthy cholesterol from raw food AND removing old stored toxic cholesterol from tissues, both appear in the blood simultaneously, inflating total numbers. He said this has "not posed harm or threat for years while health increases."

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