Word: crp
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...attack the microbes. Fat, when it builds up in plaques inside heart vessels, can launch the same type of alert, causing the plaques to rupture and lead to a heart attack. Ridker exploited this response by measuring inflammation with a specific marker of the process, C-reactive protein (CRP). CRP is easily picked up in the blood and reliably indicates how much inflammation is occurring in the heart--and thus how likely a heart attack might...
...Ridker and his colleagues at Brigham and Women's had shown that healthy middle-aged men with the highest CRP levels were three times as likely to suffer a heart attack in the next six years as were those with the lowest CRP levels. Eventually, inflammation experts determined that having a CRP reading of 3.0 mg/L or higher can triple your risk of heart disease. The danger seems even greater in women than in men. By contrast, folks with extremely low levels of CRP, less than 0.5 mg/L, rarely have heart attacks...
...this point, cardiologists are still not ready to recommend that the general population be screened for inflammation levels. But there's a growing consensus that CRP should be measured in those with a moderately elevated risk of developing cardiovascular disease. At the very least, a high CRP level might tip the balance in favor of more aggressive therapy with treatments - such as aspirin and statins - that are already known to work...
...That suggests that a well-timed intervention in the inflammatory process might reverse some of the effects of diabetes. Some of the drugs that are already used to treat the disorder, like metformin, may work because they also dampen the inflammation response. In addition, preliminary research suggests that high CRP levels may indicate a greater risk of diabetes. But it's too early to say whether reducing CRP levels will actually keep diabetes...
...Statins. Not only do statins lower cholesterol, but they also drive down levels of CRP and other inflammatory proteins...