Arteriosclerosis is a disease in which the arteries — the tubes that carry blood away from the heart — become hard and less able to stretch. When those tubes stiffen and narrow, blood has a harder time getting through, and the heart has to work more. Doctors use this as a rather broad name for “hardening of the arteries”. In everyday talk, people often use it as if it were the same as atherosclerosis, the common kind where fatty stuff builds up on the inside wall. Though actually, atherosclerosis is one main way arteries go wrong; arteriosclerosis is the wider idea of the artery wall growing stiff. News and patients usually just say “hardening of the arteries”, which is kinder on the tongue and close enough for ordinary talk. It is a heavy medical word, more at home in a clinic than in a kitchen. It has nothing to do with sore joints, even though arthritis looks a little like it on the page.

動脈硬化（症）。常被當成「動脈粥狀硬化」，其實粥狀硬化是其中常見的一種