As I was preparing for my talk at the Oklahoma Health and Wellness Summit tomorrow, one of the key points I am hoping to get across is that inflammation makes everything worse.  When you have inflammation, you have often over a 50% increased risk of cardiovascular disease (heart attack/stroke). We are not even talking about if someone has high cholesterol or diabetes as these as well as other metabolic conditions only increase this risk.

The shocking piece is we are not talking about inflammation in the heart.  We are talking inflammation that is occurring somewhere else in the body that is affecting the blood vessels in the heart (as well as other places).  Scary right?!!

I had someone call the office asking if we do special inflammatory marker testing that goes way above and beyond the regular tests because they were convinced that the inflammation was the root of her problem.  While inflammation is often the root of the problem, the bigger and even more important question is what is causing the inflammation.

So many of the people I see have high inflammatory markers and they feel it!

READ ON to learn some simple inflammation markers to check with regular labs and where to look if they are elevated….

While there are many different inflammatory markers there are three simple ones you can get through your regular lab.

  1. High sensitivity C reactive protein-hsCRP.  There is another marker called CRP (C reactive protein) but this is not as sensitive so I tend to order hsCRP.  Unfortunately, medicare will not cover this test unless there are specific circumstances so the regular CRP is often ordered instead.
    1. Optimal level of hsCRP is less than 1 mg/ml. When above 2-3 for a consistent period of time your risk of cardiovascular events increases by about 57-78% depending on the study.
    2. Causes- The following are typical causes I find that raise this marker:
      1. Gut issues. Irritable bowel especially with diarrhea & food sensitivities are at the top of the list.
      2. Dental issues. Abscesses or other infections/inflammation in the mouth is a key underyling cause.  I cannot tell you how many people have had regular checkups and even seen endodontists with all “normal” reports find out they have had an abscess all along (thanks to my dental sleuth, Dr. Debbie Ozment.  Take care of this and the inflammation resolves.
      3. Joint problems. Obviously, if your joint is really causing significant pain it is inflamed.
      4. Recent illness, surgery, dental cleaning will all temporarily raise this marker so just follow it and make sure it is coming down.
  1. Sedimentation Rate – sed rate. This is also an inflammatory marker but is more specific for actual infection or autoimmune issues.  I always go down the infection route first because I believe more autoimmune issues stem from an infectious standpoint whether it is viral or bacterial.  You have to get this one down and fast because when this is elevated it causes havoc quickly.  When very elevated steroids are often given and rightfully so!
    1. May increase the risk of vascular events by 49-57%.
  2. Homocysteine – hcy. This inflammatory marker is an independent risk factor for heart disease.
    1. Goal is less than 10 umol/L
    2. A rise of 5 above the normal range can increase your risk of stroke by 60%, coronary artery disease by 20-30% as well as increase your risk of heart failure.
    3. Can be increased with excess alcohol consumption
    4. Increased when the MTHFR pathway is not working properly, specifically the C677T pathway. The other MTHFR variants do cause inflammation but don’t typically raise this marker.
    5. Treatment to lower this include providing Methylfolate as well as Methylcobalamin (methyl B12) together and if appropriate decreasing alcohol intake.
    6. Insurance often does not like to cover this test but is important to do at least once because if elevated chances are there is a MTHFR defect.
Recent Newsletters:  Moving on with COVID19

When you have any one of these in addition to other metabolic conditions like diabetes, cholesterol, dementia etc then the processes accelerate.  This is just one of the reasons even people with normal cholesterol levels are having heart attacks – the inflammation starts the process and once it starts going it is hard to stop.

Ask your provider to check these levels!

To your health,

 

Laura