About C-reactive Protein                  
(This Article is in Courtesy of  WebMD )

By SALLY SQUIRES

ONE of the most talked-about medical topics recently is C-reactive protein (CRP), elevated blood levels of which have been closely tied to heart disease risk. Here are some things to know:

If my blood cholesterol is normal or lower, what would a CRP test tell me?

Recent studies suggest that an elevated CRP level doubles heart disease and stroke risk even if you have low cholesterol levels.

So a high CRP level may identify you as one of many people who don't appear to have risk factors for heart disease, but who may wind up suffering a heart attack anyway. If a CRP test shows that you're at risk, you can consider changing your diet and exercise programme.

If I have high cholesterol, what would a low CRP test tell me?
First, all people with elevated bad cholesterol - low-density lipoprotein - have a high risk of heart disease. If your CRP is low, "you're by no means home free," says Paul Ridker, director of Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "You still need to do something about lowering your cholesterol."

In other words, the latest evidence on CRP doesn't change any of the current guidelines about treating high cholesterol. That remains a very important risk factor for heart disease.

If I have high cholesterol and high CRP, does that place me at greater risk of heart disease than having either one alone?
Yes, indeed. That's a double whammy, the one that experts say absolutely cannot be ignored because of the strong potential for health peril.

If I were found to have a high CRP level, what would I do to lower it?
The exact same things used to lower blood cholesterol levels: Eat a healthy, well-balanced diet low in saturated fat and high in fruit, vegetables and whole grains. Achieve a healthy weight, since obesity seems to increase CRP levels. Get plenty of regular exercise.

In the future, drug therapy may help some people, too. Studies suggest that cholesterol-lowering statin drugs also reduce CRP levels, and there's evidence that aspirin may be particularly beneficial to those with elevated CRP levels.

What isn't known yet is whether lowering CRP levels reduces heart attacks and deaths. Those studies have not yet been done, but a large trial involving 15,000 people is set to begin in January to help answer that question.

So basically the advice for responding to heart disease risk hasn't changed, it's just that the CRP test may help identify more people who should follow that advice.

You've got it. More information is available from the American Heart Association (www.americanheart.org) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (www.nhlbi.nih.gov).