The American College of Cardiology [...] is now recommending that everyone measure inflammation (specifically, hs-CRP) via a blood test.
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In some ways, cholesterol has become a victim of its own success. We now screen the whole population for high cholesterol, give statins to those with high LDL (or ApoB), and so then the majority of people who end up having heart attacks have lower cholesterol than they would naturally have. This means most of the majority of residual risk for heart attacks will be found in biomarkers that aren’t SMuRFs [standard modifiable risk factor for heart disease].
Inflammation (hs-CRP) is one such non-SMuRF, one perhaps one of the strongest. This is especially true in people already on statins or those without traditional risk factors (sometimes called “SMuRF-less” patients). In these groups, cholesterol may be well controlled, but inflammation remains a key driver of events.
Of course, other traditional risk factors matter in addition to inflammation: blood pressure, HbA1c or insulin resistance, eGFR (kidney function), and so on.
From the article:
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