You may have heard me ranting about needles and bloodwork a couple of weeks ago due to my last doctor’s appointment. At the time, they were doing a retest of my CRP level (or “C Reactive Protein,” which I’ll explain presently), which was abnormally high in January during my initial visit/bloodwork. Given my family’s history of heart disease, this was minor cause for concern (not alarm, though, Amy assures/assured me). She decided we’d recheck when I wasn’t sick, since at the time I went in January I was fighting a sinus infection.
Curiosity got the best of me, and even though I know we’re going to discuss my results at my next appointment in early November, I had to know what the number was. In January, my CRP was in the low 30s; on July 30, it was 24.5. Lower = better, for sure, but what does it all mean?
Oddly enough, this all ties nicely into a Newsweek article I was reading earlier today about how fat cells work with your body chemistry to negatively impact heart health (among other things) once being overweight moves into the being obese column. What the Newsweek article suggests is that, when you’re overweight, your body actually goes into “inflammation” mode.
CRP itself is a measure of how high your body’s state of “inflammation” is — and while many things can cause your CRP to shoot up (e.g., a sinus infection), being overweight and having potential (or actual) heart disease are two other things. I did some reading online today, and this American Heart Association article I thought was a very good explanation. It also gives levels at which you should be concerned — and anything above a 3.0 is considered a high risk. Not that that surprised me. But it’s good to know.
Just wanted to share! If you have a history of heart disease in your family, you may want to think about having yours checked. It’s not a conclusive indicator, but it’s certainly something that can corroborate other information.