Are You Heading For a Heart Attack? Six Tests You Better Make Sure Your Doctor Orders!
Dr. Bruce West-- Health Alert
A study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), April 1, 2004, questioned the importance of the C-Reactive Protein (CRP) test as a predictor of heart disease.
Talk about a turn a-round.
There have been more than 20 studies showing the efficacy of the CRP test.
More than half of these have shown that high CRP levels predict a 100% increased risk of heart attack.
But this latest study (there's always a study to refute any other study) says that the CRP test is no more important than the old standbys including cholesterol, blood pressure, smoking, etc.
Well, the medical industry can breathe a sigh of relief after this study.
You see, they have treatments and drugs recycled paper for all the other tests, statin drugs for cholesterol, and channel blockers, diuretics, and more for blood pressure.
But when it comes to CRP, the world of medicine does not know what it means, and they have no idea what to do about it.
So this latest study will bring patients back into the statin, blood pressure, and heart drug arena where doctors are secure and don't feel threatened.
This is another sad day for heart patients.
After close to 30 years I can tell you that if your CRP is high, and especially if it is combined with other heart disease markers, you had BETTER TAKE ACTION NOW.
Common Sense?
For me, with more than 20 studies and more than 25 years of personal experience with CRP and heart disease, it only makes sense to pay attention.
One lone-wolf doctor from Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston is worried that doctors will no longer pay attention to the CRP test.
He is "concerned that even in the face of overwhelming evidence that this inexpensive blood test works, we are at risk of moving backward rather than forward." I agree.
The most critical heart tests cannot be gathered from heart screenings.
These screenings should be avoided, period�they only lead to inconclusive results; false positives; and lots and lots of further testing and invasive medical procedures including angiography, bypasses, drugs, and more.
The tests that really paint a picture are Total Cholesterol with HDL and LDL fractions, triglycerides, fasting glucose, CRP, Homocysteine, and Heart Recovery Rate.
This is the rate at which the heart recovers from extreme aerobic maximum output. Your heart rate at maximum aerobic output minus the heart rate after a minute's rest from peak output is your Heart Recovery Rate. It should be 20 or better and is critical if it is 12 or less.
When you test your Heart Recovery Rate, glucose, cholesterol (HDL/LDL), C-Reactive Protein, Homocysteine and Triglycerides, you really have something.
If you have two or more out of normal, you need to take IMMEDIATE ACTION
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