James Crowley: The Complex Role of CRP in Cardiovascular Risk and Atherosclerosis
James Crowley, Professor of Medicine Emeritus at Brown University, Captain at U.S. Navy Reserve, shared a post on LinkedIn about a recent article by Paul M Ridker, published in Circulation, adding:
“Because CRP is an ‘acute-phase reactant’ and goes up during major trauma and infection, some physicians have long worried that CRP testing might be too nonspecific for clinical use.
However, multiple studies show that CRP, when measured appropriately with high-sensitivity assays in stable individuals, is quite specific for the prediction of future cardiovascular events.
In one recent study, elevated CRP levels were associated with an 8-fold increase in cardiovascular mortality, but had no predictive value for death from other causes.
Thus, a persistently elevated CRP level is indicative of the risk of heart disease and of the accelerated atherosclerosis that affects individuals with diabetes.
Thus it is surprising that a recently released large prospective study of a new medication that lowers CRP failed to lower the occurrence of CVD!
Similarly, results of the successful lowering of LPa, long suspected to cause inflammation in another large study also failed to lower CVD.
These surprising results of these studies have been reviewed by the prominent cardiologist Eric Topol who frequently has posted highly praised interviews with leading CVD researchers.”
Title: C-Reactive Protein: A Simple Test to Help Predict Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke
Author: Paul M Ridker

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