The Connection Between Heart Disease and Inflammation

In 1997, a study showed, for the first time, the link between C-Reactive Protein (CRP) and heart disease. The public began to hear rumblings about testing for CRP a few years later. Some public health advisors began to say that CRP levels were as important, if not more important, than cholesterol levels in predicting heart disease. Was it just one study or have the results been repeated? Several studies have supported CRP as an indicator of risk of heart attack, and more have elaborated on the relationship between infection, CRP, and heart disease.

C-Reactive Protein is produced by the body when inflammation is present. Inflammation is part of the body's immune reaction to infection and injury. Why would inflammation be related to heart disease and heart attack? While the specific cause and effect is so far unknown, there is clearly a strong correlation between inflammation and heart attack.

In fact, not only is the relationship between inflammation and acute heart attack clear, but studies also definitively indicate that inflammation is also related to non-acute heart disease as well as high blood pressure. (Women's Heath Study 1998)

First in 1997, the Physician's Health Study (a large, ongoing survey of initially healthy men) reported that C-reactive protein was a indicator of heart attack risk. Subsequently in 1998, the Women's Health Study (a large, ongoing survey healthy, post-menopausal women) revealed a similar finding, but added a link between CRP and stroke (Sesso 2003 BYU) and general cardiovascular disease.

The American Heart Association list the following risk factors for developing heart disease or suffering a heart attack: Increasing age, male gender, heredity (including race,) smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, inactivity, obesity and overweight, diabetes, excess alcohol consumption, and stress.

Most of these heart disease risk factors are directly related to levels of inflammation. Heart attack risk factors directly related to high levels of inflammation include smoking, high blood pressure, inactivity, obesity, diabetes, excess alcohol consumption, and sometimes stress (M. Collins 2001.)

The good news is that even if there's nothing we can do to keep ourselves from getting older or being male, there's still a lot of room for prevention by tackling the causes of inflammation.

Keeping ourselves healthy and free of infection is one avenue. A recent study showed a distinctly higher level of UTI (urinary tract infection) in patients admitted for acute coronary syndrome (J.B.Sims 2004); an earlier study concluded that people with periodontal infections carried higher levels of CRP. (Noack 2001) As we know of the link between CRP, infections, and heart disease, it is logical to conclude that simply reducing our infections will help prevent heart disease.