How is the thickness of the carotid artery wall a measure of heart disease?
The carotid artery is the major artery that takes blood to your brain. The process of atherosclerosis, which is really the thickening of vessel walls that ultimately leads to blockage of those vessels, is the underlying process of stroke as well as heart disease. It’s very difficult to measure the blood vessels in the heart directly, and in most relatively healthy populations, that’s not a method you can use.
