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Medical doctors knew the importance of having a C-reactive protein check. But the prescription may battle for insurance considerations. C–reactive protein known as CRP is considered as more important than cholesterol check by some doctors. Most people do not realize that half of all heart attacks and strokes occur in people with completely normal cholesterols. Measuring the level of inflammation in your body is made by testing the level of protein concentration released during the inflammatory process. This substance is called C-reactive protein. This is produced by the liver as part of your body’s basic emergency response system. This is more visible on stages of acute inflammation.

Don’t you know that a high CRP level doubles your risk for heart disease and stroke? This is true even if you have low cholesterol and blood pressure levels. The inflammation has very significant impact on heart disease risk. Inflammation is an immune system triggered by infection or injury. When it breaks down, it produces redness, heat and swelling. To help you grasp the idea. A fever developed in response to an infection is called as full body inflammation. This is produced by your immune system to create an unfriendly environment for germs. But when the response is intense it already causes more harm than good.

Hardening of the arteries or atherosclerosis is also regarded as one form of inflammation. Usually this happens when too much cholesterol has been built up in the artery walls. It then hardens and forms into plaques. This will eventually interfere with your blood flow. A drop of that blood flow would mean decrease of flow of oxygen to your heart. This situation will likely trigger a heart attack. The most dangerous case is when plaque builds up happens inside artery walls. They then grow into the vessel wall. It pushes the artery walls outward while blocking blood flow. This cannot be seen on x-rays because the artery stays open. This may seem harmless but deadly because of their potential to become unstable.

This immune cell activity induces the liver to create CRP. CRP floods in to help attack the growing piles of dead germs or plaque. Inflammation then occurs which inadvertently worsens plaques status by increasing their unstable state. In this condition, plaque has every tendency to burst and expose the material inside to your circulating blood. This quickly cause clot formation. There is no exception to being exposed to this type of risk even those who have low cholesterol levels. At some point on our lives especially when we reach middle age, we do accumulate some kind of plaque build up in our arteries.

Research showed that CRP actually inflames the arteries. It triggers the formation of clots and plaques. This will ultimately cause a person to experience a heart attack or a stroke. This is the very reason why I was talking about high levels of CRP as predictor of future heart problems. It does have multiple, independent effects that causes heart diseases.  By the way the well established heart disease risk factors are still obesity, lack of exercise, smoking and high blood pressure. These are known to increase inflammation and CRP levels. Fat cells constantly produce CRP. Maybe you would want to be more religious in doing your daily one hour exercise even if it is only walking. If you can afford the cost for determining your CRP levels please incur the cost personally. It can be used to assess the total impact of many different factors on your heart health.