C-Reactive Protein (CRP) Testing for Heart Disease

Your body produces C-reactive protein, or CRP, when something is starting to become inflamed. So if a doctor finds CRP in your blood, which they can do through a test, they’ll know there’s inflammationhappening somewhere in your body.If your arteries are inflamed, you have a greater risk of:Heart diseaseHeart attackStrokePeripheral arterial diseaseC-Reactive Protein and Heart Disease RiskCRP seems to predict the chance of having cardiovascular problems at least as well as cholesterol levels. A recent study found that elevated levels of C-reactive protein were associated with three-times-greater risk of a heart attack.In a Harvard Women's Health Study, CRP test results were more accurate. Twelve different indicators of inflammation were looked at in healthy women who had already had menopause. Three years later, those with the highest CRP levels were more than four times as likely to have died from coronary disease, or had a heart attack that wasn’t fatal, or stroke, compared with those...