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HEALTH REPORT: December 4, 2002: Test Warns of Heart
Attack Risk
By Jerilyn Watson
This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
Since the nineteen-fifties, American doctors
have tested their patients' blood for cholesterol. High levels of this
fatty substance help warn of a possible heart attack or stroke. Now
a new study says a rarely performed test for a protein in the blood
might do this better. The study showed that women with high levels of
C-reactive protein were two times as likely
to have a heart attack or stroke as women with high cholesterol levels.
The study appeared in the New England Journal
of Medicine. Researchers studied almost twenty-eight-thousand healthy
women for eight years. The women were forty-five years old or older.
Paul Ridker of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts
led the research.
One group of women in the study had higher than
normal levels of C-reactive protein. These same women had below average
levels of low density lipoprotein or L-D-L. This is often called bad
cholesterol. These women were considered at low risk for heart attacks
and strokes.
Another group had the opposite conditions. They
had low levels of C-reactive protein and high levels of L-D-L. Over
time, the women with high C-reactive protein and low L-D-L suffered
more heart attacks and strokes. This led researchers to believe that
people with good cholesterol levels may have a false feeling of security
about their health. About half of the people with heart disease have
normal cholesterol levels.
Doctors test for cholesterol because it sticks
to blood passages called arteries. In time, the substance can block
arteries and reduce the flow of blood to the heart or brain. This can
kill brain or heart cells.
The rarely used test measures the levels of
C-reactive protein made by the body when arteries are inflamed. Inflammation
is a reaction to infection, injury or other causes. Many doctors suspect
that continued inflammation helps cause artery disease, heart attacks
and strokes.
Millions of Americans who have normal cholesterol
levels also have high C-reactive protein. Doctor Ridker said the C-reactive
protein test could warn these people of possible trouble. They could
then exercise, lose weight or take drugs called statins. Doctors advise
these same measures to treat high cholesterol levels.
This VOA Special English Health Report was written
by Jerilyn Watson.
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