Heart Disease is now Accepted to be an Inflammatory Condition

Heart disease is now accepted to be an inflammatory condition and not due to excess cholesterol.

There is a growing consensus that CRP (c-reactive protein) levels, which can be measured via blood tests, are an indicator of inflammation bearing a risk of increased risk for heart disease. C-reactive protein is elevated after injury, fever, and infection. Continued high CRP levels may cause a chain reaction as seen in atherosclerosis i.e. coronary plaque, narrowing of the vessel’s lumen, thrombus formation, decreasing blood flow to the heart causing a hear attack [1].

At the Cleveland Clinic Dr. Bhatt did a study showing that if cardiac patients with high CRP levels were treaded with an antithrombotic agent before the procedure, rates of severe complications decreased to 10.2 percent from 24 percent. People suffering from diabetes seemed to benefit the most from this procedure [2].

Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic state that this changes everything in treatment of heart disease. While cholesterol levels still might play a role in heart disease, in the coming decades they say, everyone will need to know their CRP levels as a more important indicator for heart disease [3].

How can one prevent high levels of CRP? I hate to repeat myself but the best treatment for increased levels of CRP are lifestyle changes. And people familiar with my stance on chronic disease know what that entails. Losing weight, increasing exercise, kicking the nicotine habit, getting high blood pressure under control and reducing alcohol intake.

Beste Gesundheit,

Werner

References

1. Cleveland Clinic, Heart and Vascular Institute. “Role of inflammation -Growing proof inflammation is a major risk factor for heart disease.” Last accessed September 9, 2008

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Comments

[Kate]

I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Kate

http://educationonline-101.com

[Ruth]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Ruth

http://www.infrared-sauna-spot.info

[rife machine]

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a protein found in the blood in response to inflammation.CRP is produced by the liver and by fat cells (adipocytes).
Blood samples of persons with colon cancer have an average CRP concentration of 2.69 milligrams per liter.
i hope everyone must take a "high-sensitivity" CRP or hs-CRP test to note down the levels of CRP.
thank you for the information.

[fitnessfrk]

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[Heather]

I loved your article! It makes sense that heart disease is now considered an inflammatory disease. I had wondered about it myself, just because knowing what inflammation does to the body, as I have suffered in the past with inflammation problems due to a back injury. Inflammation not only effects the heart, but effects the lungs in a serious way as well.

Thanks for the information and I'm off to do some more research on this subject!

[Nurse Line]

Thanks for the infoprmation here...heart disease has come into most of the families and I completely blame our lifestyles for it.