What is atherosclerosis?

Firstly, let's try to understand what 'atherosclerosis' actually means. To do that, I would recommend understanding the origin of the word. As with most specific terms in biology, the name often explains itself. In this case the way we breakdown 'atherosclerosis' is into 'athero' and 'sclerosis'. 'Athero' meaning a 'fatty plaque' and a 'sclerosis' meaning hardening of body tissue, in essence, it just describes the process of tissues losing elasticity due to the formation of fatty plaques. Although, it does come with the caveat that this term is actually super-specialised to mean blood vessels when it says 'body tissues'.
And due to this loss of elasticity in blood vessels, many problems can arise. Why? Well, because each of our blood vessels carry out functions that are key in keeping us alive. Take the artery for example, made up of multiple layers the artery is key in transporting blood all over the body. If these lose elasticity and consequently width in size, the amount of blood transported around the body is decreased. Leading to problems, especially if it occurs in a coronary artery, where a lack of blood would lead to a potential heart attack.