OBJECTIVE Reasons for variations in atherosclerotic burden among individuals with similar levels of obesity are poorly understood, especially in African Americans. This study examines whether high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) is useful for discriminating between benign and high-risk obesity phenotypes for subclinical atherosclerosis in African Americans. APPROACH AND RESULTS Partici...

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a liver-derived pattern recognition molecule that is increased in inflammatory states. It rapidly increases within hours after tissue injury, and it is suggested that it is part of the innate immune system and contributes to host defense. Since cardiovascular disease is at least in part an inflammatory process, CRP has been investigated in the context of arterioscler...

The median values for hsCRP are 2.5 mg/l (American women) and 1.5 mg/l (American men) [2]. Typical recommendations are to measure hsCRP in ‘‘intermediate risk’’ patients to help classify them into either a higher or lower risk category [3,4]. Intermediate risk is usually, and arbitrarily, described as either a 10%–20% [3,4] or 5%–20% [5,6] 10year risk of developing coronary heart disease (CHD)....

Previous studies have shown that fish protein, as well as marine n-3 PUFA, may have beneficial effects on cardiovascular risk profile. The objectives of this study were to investigate the combined effects of fish gelatine (FG) and n-3 PUFA supplementation on (1) energy intake and body weight, (2) lipid profile and (3) inflammatory and CVD markers in free-living insulin-resistant males and femal...

BACKGROUND Serum Gamma-Glutamyl Transferase (GGT), a marker of oxidative stress, has been suggested to be independently associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) events. We examined the association of serum GGT levels with the burden of subclinical inflammation across a spectrum of metabolic conditions. METHODS We evaluated 5,446 asymptomatic subjects (43 ± 10 years, 78 % males) who had an...

Ischemic stroke is one of the most common causes of death worldwide and is most often caused by thrombotic processes. We investigated the changes in hsCRP and homocysteine levels, two of these risk factors, during the acute period of ischemic stroke and evaluated the relationship between these levels and the short-term prognosis. HsCRP and homocysteine levels were measured at the 2nd, 5th, and ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The role of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) in the development of stroke is not clearly understood. We investigated the relationship between serum hsCRP levels and stroke occurrence in a general Japanese population. METHODS We followed 2692 subjects > or =40 years of age for 12 years. The relative risks and 95% CIs for ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke occurre...

Acute minor ischemic stroke and transient ischemic attack (TIA) are common, and patients with recent stroke or TIA are at high risk for subsequent stroke. It is estimated that 10% to 20% of these patients have a stroke within 3 months after the index event, most of which even occur within the first 2 days. Though several clinical risk factors have been reported to be associated with recurrent s...

Objective: Arterial stiffness and inflammation may contribute to enhanced cardiovascular mortality of dialyzed patients.Our aim was the examination of the association between inflammatory factors, arterial stiffening and cardiovascular complications in patients on permanent hemodialysis modalities. Methods: We studied 76 dialyzed patients, 47 males and 29 females.Patients were separated as regu...