Word: heartfully
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Ridker at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, the study tracked about 17,800 people in 26 countries. Participants included men ages 50 and older and women ages 60 and older, who had high levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) but normal cholesterol levels and no history of heart disease. Half the participants were given rosuvastatin (Crestor), and half were given a placebo daily for just under two years. The statin group reduced their CRP levels by 37%; their LDL, or bad cholesterol, levels dropped 50% to about 55 mg/dL. Among the 8,901 statin-takers, 31 suffered...
Several previous studies have suggested that inflammation, independent of cholesterol levels and other well-established risk factors, is an important marker of heart disease. But while it was clear that inflammation was a key player in disease, there was no real data to prove that reducing inflammation, as measured by lower levels of the CRP marker in the blood, could prevent future cardiovascular disease in otherwise healthy patients...
...results of the study not only shift the state of the evidence but also herald new guidelines for the prevention of heart disease and redefine the traditional at-risk population. Many people who, for example, lack outward signs of heart disease may have high CRP levels, which could put them at silent risk for heart attack or stroke. According to the study, published also in the New England Journal of Medicine, at least 250,000 heart attacks, or about 20% of the total heart attacks suffered per year in the U.S., may be prevented by controlling inflammation. Indeed, nearly half...
...results may prompt serious rethinking of the current guidelines - an issue that health officials have already been debating in recent years. "I would not be surprised if, given these results, we determined that normal LDL should be lower than currently defined," says Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Updated cholesterol guidelines are expected...
That will likely be just one of many changes in the thinking behind heart-disease prevention. JUPITER's results shore up the contention that one heart attack is not the same as the next. Cardiologists think that cholesterol and inflammation conspire to cause heart attacks but that each person's genes and lifestyle influence how those factors interact. Excess cholesterol causes fatty deposits to build up within heart artery walls; those plaques trigger immune and inflammatory reactions in the body that tend to increase the instability and rupture of the plaques, which causes heart attacks. How aggressive the inflammatory response...