Heart Attacks!!
Dear Dr. Mirkin: How does inflammation cause heart attacks?
When germs get into your bloodstream, you are
supposed to produce white blood cells and antibodies that help
kill these germs. The white blood cells produce chemicals that
cause swelling to bring fluid to carry body defense mechanisms,
and other chemicals to call out other cells that increase swelling,
redness and pain. So inflammation is good because it helps to
protect you from infection. However, if you allow the
inflammation to continue, or if your produce inflammation when
you don't need it, swelling damages your tissues and you may
suffer heart attacks, strokes, cancers, Crohn's disease, psoriasis,
arthritis, or even Alzheimer's disease.
A study in The New England Journal of Medicine
(November 2002) showed that women with high levels of a blood
test called C reactive protein (CRP), which measures
inflammation, are twice as likely as those with high cholesterol to
die from heart attacks and strokes. This study followed 28,000
women for eight years. Dr. Paul Ridker of Brigham and Women's
Hospital in Boston found that CRP did a better job of predicting
heart disease risk than cholesterol, which tells us that
inflammation is more important than blood fat levels in predicting
heart attacks. The fatty plaque buildup that lines blood vessels
often becomes inflamed because your white blood cells attack
your own tissue rather than just germs. Fat cells are also known
to turn out these inflammatory proteins. Other causes of
inflammation include high blood pressure, smoking, obesity, and
lingering low-level infections such as chronic gum disease.
Inflammation is thought to weaken the fatty buildups, or plaques,
making them more likely to burst. A piece of plaque can then
lead to a clot that can choke off the blood flow and cause a heart
attack.
C REACTIVE PROTEIN
Recent research shows that having a high C-Reactive Protein blood test increases your risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke by twice as much as having a high cholesterol. C-Reactive Protein (CRP) measures inflammation, part of the immune reaction that protects you from infection when you injure yourself. It causes redness, pain and swelling, and can damage the inner lining of arteries, and break off clots from arteries to block the flow of blood to cause strokes and heart attacks.
C-Reactive Protein levels fluctuate from day to day, and levels increase with aging, high blood pressure, alcohol use, smoking, low levels of physical activity, chronic fatigue, coffee consumption, having elevated triglycerides, insulin resistance or diabetes, taking estrogen, eating a high protein diet, and suffering sleep disturbances, or depression. If you have none of these known causes, at this time the best ways we know to reduce C-Reactive Protein levels are exercise and a diet that includes omega-3 fatty acids . Statins appear to protect against inflammation as well as cholesterol, but they can cause nerve and muscle damage and deplete the body of co-enzyme Q10.
IF YOU HAVE A HIGH C REACTIVE PROTEIN, try to correct the known causes: infection, high blood pressure, alcohol use, smoking, low levels of physical activity, chronic fatigue, coffee consumption, having elevated triglycerides, insulin resistance or diabetes, taking estrogen, eating a high protein diet, and suffering sleep disturbances, or depression.
The most common cause of an elevated C Reactive Protein is infection. If you have burning on urination, getting up in the night to urinate, urgency when your bladder is full of a feeling that you have to urinate all the time, check for a urinary tract infection. If you have wheezing and a chronic cough or shortness of breath, check for a lung infection. If you have belching and burning in your stomach, get an upper GI series X ray and blood test for Helicobacter. If you have diarrhea, check for an intestinal infection. If you have any of these infections, you have an accepted reason to take antibiotics. Your evaluation should include IGG and IGM antibody blood tests for chlamydia and mycoplasma. If either or both titers are high, I usually recommend taking doxycycline 100 mg twice a day for at least three weeks. Most doctors will not do this because they feel that data aren't strong enough to warrant antibiotics at this time.