In medicine, “mediates” is mostly synonymous with “facilitates”. So ‘lifelong exposure to cholesterol facilitates atherosclerosis’ - mediates is a bit softer s

In medicine, “mediates” is mostly synonymous with “facilitates”. So ‘lifelong exposure to cholesterol facilitates atherosclerosis’ - mediates is a bit softer since health changes often involve multiple pathways and can be impacted by many other processes.