Inflammation & the heart.Curbing inflammation may cut the risk of heart disease, report scientists at Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University. It is a prestigious American medical school located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. . Paul Ridker Paul M. Ridker is a medical researcher and the Eugene Braunwald Professor of Medicine at Harvard University. He is also on staff at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Ridker was included in TIME magazine's list of 100 most influential people of 2004. and colleagues studied 1,086 men who had participated in the Physicians' Health Study, which randomly assigned more than 22,000 healthy men to take either 325 mg of aspirin or a placebo every other day. (The study was stopped in 1988, when it became clear that the aspirin-takers had a lower risk of heart disease.) Ridker then compared the initial blood levels of C-reactive protein--a sign of inflammation anywhere in the body--in 543 of the men who later had a heart attack, stroke, or similar problem to the levels in 543 of the men who didn't. Those who started out with high levels of inflammation had three times the risk of heart attack, and two times the risk of stroke, of those who started out with low levels of inflammation. Aspirin, which curbs inflammation, cut heart disease risk by 56 percent in the men with high levels of inflammation, but only slightly or not at all in the men with low levels. There were too few strokes to tell if aspirin lowered the risk. "We don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. whether some prior chronic inflammation chronic inflammation n. Inflammation that may have a rapid or slow onset but is characterized primarily by its persistence and lack of clear resolution; it occurs when the tissues are unable to overcome the effects of the injuring agent. leads to atherosclerosis [artery-clogging], whether atherosclerosis causes the inflammation, or whether atherosderosis and inflammation run in tandem and accelerate each other," says Ridker. "Curbing inflammation is another way to prevent heart disease, not a replacement for cutting fat, exercise, smoking cessation smoking cessation Public health Temporary or permanent halting of habitual cigarette smoking; withdrawal therapies–eg, hypnosis, psychotherapy, group counseling, exposing smokers to Pts with terminal lung CA and nicotine chewing gum are often ineffective. , and blood pressure control," he adds. "The men in this study--including those who took aspirin--still had plenty of heart attacks." New England Journal of Medicine The New England Journal of Medicine (New Engl J Med or NEJM) is an English-language peer-reviewed medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It is one of the most popular and widely-read peer-reviewed general medical journals in the world. 336: 973, 1014, 1997. |
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