> Later, he conducted a study showing that rats developed atherosclerosis after being fed artificial trans fats. When he removed the substance from their diets, the atherosclerosis disappeared from their arteries.
First of all I am talking about the trans fats themself, and plaque is not made from the trans fats themself. Those fats will be burned for energy over time and vanish.
If you want to talk about the results of the trans fats, those too will reverse over time if the health of the person improves.
Even with pharmacological intervention, reducing plaque size is really tough. The plaques are not just made of fat, but fibrosis tissue, immune cells, etc.
There are tons of studies that show that better lifestyle helps, it's just most people can't do it. Not eating trans fats is one small change that will help, that is also easily done.
Help reduce plaque size? I'd be interested to see those studies!
Some studies for plaque reduction: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3872716/ http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/19/8/1956.short http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/15/7/827.short
There were also studies that show better diet stabilizes the plaque, preventing it from causing problems.
If you want to find more studies: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=plaque+regression
You've changed your claim. First you said a healthy diet will reduce plaque volume, now you say it just helps reduce heart attack rates.
Even the studies you cited only show minimal plaque volume reduction (so small it's questionable if it helps at all) and only with intensive pharmacological therapy.