Use of carotid ultrasound in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study has demonstrated strong relationships of carotid wall thicknesses to clinical CVD and to traditional CVD risk factors such as age, sex, lipids, hypertension, smoking, diabetes, obesity and dietary fat. Using the powerful nested case-control design, in which atherosclerosis cases and non-atherosclerotic controls are selected from the entire population distribution of wall thickness, ARIC has also demonstrated strong associations of carotid atherosclerosis with Lp(a) and Lp(a) phenotypes, antibodies to infectious agents, fibrinolytic factors and inflammatory factors, cellular adhesion molecules, homocysteine levels, and dietary magnesium and antioxidants.