Linus Pauling's and Matthias Rath's extended theory [11] states that deaths from scurvy in humans during the ice age, when vitamin C (an antioxidant) was scarce, selected for individuals who could repair arteries with a layer of cholesterol provided by lipoprotein(a), a lipoprotein found in vitamin C-deficient species (higher primates and guinea pigs). Pauling and Rath theorised that, although eventually harmful, lipoprotein deposition on artery walls was beneficial to the human species and a "surrogate for ascorbate" in that it kept individuals alive until access to vitamin C allowed arterial damage to be repaired. Atherosclerosis is thus a vitamin-C-deficiency disease