Health Gallery Nutrition Center

29820 Ellensburg Avenue
Box 283, Gold Beach, Or 97444
1-541-247-7077

CRP Blood Test Results From Second Lab
By Walt "dr health" Edwards

Due to the great number of spam, we changed the E-mail address. Please contact me using this number: 1-541-247-7077 Past issues available on my web site: getwel-newsletter.
The result of my first blood draw in March for High Sensitivity, C-Reactive Protein was 6.25 which is considered high. The risk of future MI was 2.65 which was rated HIGHEST.

A second blood draw was scheduled in six weeks. My doctor had no recommendation to correct the condition, but asked me if I had any ideas to reduce the high inflammation reading. My plan was more exercise and to increase walking to at least 30 minutes daily, be more careful with my diet, to lose a couple of pounds and to add a proinflammatory supplement SerraPhase by Sedona Labs to my daily supplements. A more detailed account of my corrective action and list of daily supplements is available in the June Newsletter.

The HIGH SENSITIVITY CRP test results of my second blood draw on April 17th was 0.86 mg/L and the risk of future MI was 1.25 which is considered mild. This was a significant change that appeared to be too successful. The subject of lab accuracy results came up, leaving a question in my mind to be answered. If this result is in question, then why not ANY lab test results?

A second opinion was sought with another doctor May 21st. His first impression was also something is wrong with the test results. He also found it hard to believe such fast results could occur in such a short time. He had never heard of the supplement SerraPhase which supports the normal post-inflammatory break up and eliminnation of cellular debris. Before making any decision on my CRP situation he asked his nurse to check it out on www.WebMD.com and www.healthyheartmiracle.com.

Print out from www.WebMD.com stated, "the CRP test may be helpful in predicting your risk for heart problems especially when it is combined with total cholesterol and HCL cholesterol tests. High CRP levels before a major surgery may indicate that you are at risk for developing an infection after surgery. CRP testing can be used to see how well you respond to cancer treatment or treatment for an infection. Your CRP levels will rise quickly and then quickly return to normal if the treatment is working. High CRP levels may increase your chances of having other diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration and colon cancer."

No actual treatment is mentioned in the www.WebMD.com report. However, the www. healthyheartmiracle.com stated, "Recent research shows that having a high C-Reactive Protein blood test increases your risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke by twice as much as having a high cholesterol. CRP measures inflammation, part of the immune reaction that protects you from infection when you injure yourself. It causes redness, pain and swelling and can damage the inner lining of arteries, and break off clots from arteries to block the flow of blood to cause strokes and heart attacks."

The question of test results again became the subject of discussion and had to be verified. In order to answer the BIG question I agreed to use the same lab the second doctor sends his patients for my next blood draw analysis. The result was provided for review on July 18th.

Result was .68 which is considered low cardiovascular risk. My previous results were .86 which showed marked improvement from the first reading of 6.25. Readings of 1.0 to 3.0 are average and 3.0 to 10.0 are high risk. High readings can be caused by smoking, diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipedemia, family history, tissue injury or infections.

I asked the doctor why there isn't more concern about CRP and the fact he had no treatment to recommend for high readings of CRP. He told me that there is no "medical protocol" he was aware of for the treatment of high CRP. If a patient happen to have diabetes, hypertension or infections the normal "medical protocol" treatment would be drugs or antibiotics.

In my opinion, the action I took by being more careful with my diet, increasing exercise and taking six tablets daily of the Serraphase from Sedona Labs in addition to my daily supplements to correct the high CRP reading was successful in six weeks. I reduced the Serraphase to two to three daily during the last six weeks. In addition, I also experienced less joint/muscular soreness after an active day in the garden.

Besides Sedona Labs SerraPhase other supplements to reduce inflammation are RejuvenZyme by Source Naturals, and Wobernzym N,. Readers are encouraged to contact me for any additional information, questions or recommend subjects for future newsletters.

Chronic Inflammation: The world of medical science is undergoing a radical upheaval in how it understands the cause of debilitation and "killer" diseases. Dr. Paul Ridker, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the father of modern inflammation research said in a cover article about chronic inflammation in Time magazine (Feb. 23, 2003), "Just a few years ago, nobody was interested in this stuff. Now the whole field of inflammation research is about to explode."

Dr. Andrew Weil, leading integrative medicine specialist says, "chronic inflammation just may be the root of all degenerative disease." And professor of gastroenterology at the University of Aberdeen, UK, Emad El-Omar, says in an article in The Scientist (July 14, 2003), "I personally believe that chronic inflammation is the root of all evil." Time magazine states,"Instead of different treatments for, say, heart disease, Alzheimer's and colon cancer, there might be a single, inflammation-reducing remedy that would prevent all three."

Medical research supports what these medical experts are saying. The cancer medical journal Oncology published a landmark study, "Chronic Inflammation and Cancer" in its february, 2002 issue. The authors concluded, "A substantial body of evidence supports the conclusion that chronic inflammation can predispose individuals to cancer...the longer the inflammation persists, the higher the risk."

Over 140 studies have firmly established that high levels of chronic inflammation predict significantly greater risk for serious disease and death. - National Library of Medicine, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez.

A New England Journal of Medicine study showed that people with high levels of CRP were almost three times as likely to die from a heart attack, regardless of their cholesterol levels. High levels of C-reactive protein also indicate who is more likely to get colon, esophageal, liver, stomach, prostate and lymphoma cancers (Oncology, Vol. 16, No 2, Feb. 2002, "Chronic Inflammation and Cancer").

In the early 1990s, Dr. Paul Ridker became convinced that some sort of inflammatory reaction and not cholesterol was causing plaque in the arteries to burst and cause heart attacks. He needed a simple blood test that could provide a marker for chronic inflammation. He decided the best marker would be C-reactive protein (CRP), a molecule produced by the liver in response to an inflammatory signal. The higher the level of inflammation, the higher the levels of CRP. Everyone who suspects they might have chronic inflammation, and every senior should ask their doctor for a Highly Sensitive C-reactive Protein test. You might also ask your doctor for his or her "protocol" to treat high risk readings of CRP. Please let me know what it might be.

Thought For The Day: Imbalances in the body causes inflammation and disease. The achievement of balance requires the afflicted owner's active mind and body participation in order to achieve success.

GETWEL.COM

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Walt Edwards