What does this [C-reactive protein] study mean for understanding, treating, and preventing heart disease?
Dr. Cannon: We had been looking for simple markers of who’s at risk of heart disease and then see if we can use the markers to try and change treatment for people. My colleague Paul Ridker has done numerous studies showing that a blood test called C-reactive protein, or C.R.P., which is a marker of irritation or inflammation in the arteries, if that’s elevated, that is a sign that you’re at increased risk of a heart attack. Now, our current study asks the question, if high C.R.P. is bad, does lowering C.R.P. reduce the risk of a heart attack? And fortunately we found that it does. And so we set up a study looking at two different doses of the statin drugs that lower cholesterol, but also have anti-inflammation properties, and found that people who had greater lowering of the C.R.P. to a level below two had a significantly lower risk of heart attack or death than patients who still had a higher C.R.P. And so quite simply, as we know for cholesterol, lowered cholesterol is better. We’ve
