The test is inexpensive, costing $10 to $20 to perform, and is available at labs and hospitals across the country. Requesting a CRP test won't be a burden on the healthcare system.

According to studies, if your CRP should come back high, you should lose weight, quit smoking, take aspirin, and lower cholesterol with statins or niacin. Special care should be taken to prevent chronic infections such as periodontal disease and Helicobacter pylori in the upper GI tract. (A normal CRP is considered to be 0 to 10 milligrams per liter in hospital labs we checked.)

If your CRP is nice and low, don't be complacent--it would be wise to take all the above precautions. The CRP test is especially important to those with a family history of heart attacks and strokes.

The Scientific Evidence
Data from 3,745 heart attack patients in the PROVE IT--TIMI 22 trial showed those who had low CRP levels after statin treatment did significantly better than those with high CRP levels, regardless of the level of LDL cholesterol attained.

"These new data confirm the crucial role inflammation plays in heart disease," said lead author Dr. Paul M. Ridker of Brigham and Women's Hospital. "The data also provide the first hard evidence that lowering CRP levels is associated with clinical benefits for our patients."

We first reported on the role of CRP in heart disease in the December 2002 issue of Medical Update (Vol. 28, Number 6).

"The high-sensitivity CRP test provides us with a way to measure very low levels of inflammation, which turn out to be highly predictive of future heart attacks and stroke," Dr. Ridker told us. "When we combine the new hs-CRP test with standard cholesterol screening, we appear to be able to do a far better job in terms of predicting who will ultimately go on to have a heart attack or stroke than if we had relied on cholesterol levels alone."