 Every part of the body needs sufficient blood flow to function properly. Cholesterol can clog arteries in our inner and outer organs, causing heart attacks, strokes, and sexual dysfunction. But what about blood flow to our spine? Our spines are very vascular, and cholesterol clogs in the vertebral arteries can lead to the degeneration of our discs and lower back pain, the second leading cause of disability. Autopsy studies confirm what happens when your cholesterol gets too high. This is what the openings to the arteries in your back should look like on the left, and on the right, you can see how clogged off they can become. With the standard Western diet, atheromatous plaques may begin to appear early in adult life, and by the age of 20, roughly 10% of the population already has advanced lesions. Smoking and high serum cholesterol levels were found to have the most consistent associations with disc degeneration and low back pain. Much of back pain-related disability appears to be an open or shut case, depending on our diet.