TIME TO CHECK YOUR CRP LEVELS- preventing cardiovascular diseases.
The rise of cardiovascular diseases begs question on how we can predict the occurrence of these diseases and prevent them from happening.
Cardiovascular diseases fall under a category known as chronic non communicable diseases. It’s now know that chronic non communicable diseases have been linked to chronic low grade inflammation. It simply implies that all this disease don’t just occur at once, they take time hence giving us an opportunity to predict the occurrence of them.
Chronic low grade inflammation is not inflammation lasting for more than 2 weeks but rather a persistent, 2-3 fold increase in the systemic concentration of the pro-inflammatory cytokines involved in the acute inflammatory response. And in this case we are focusing on CRP.
CRP levels can be measured in the lab. An increase in the levels is associated with future risk of cardiovascular diseases. The risk is increased more in persons with increased levels of LDL (low density lipoproteins) cholesterol levels.
Increased CRP levels is also a marker for rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes among other chronic non communicable diseases.
There are other markers of chronic low grade inflammation among them IL-6, TNFa, sTNFa among others.
Overweight/obese is also associated with cardiovascular diseases.
What happens when you start aerobic exercises and you still don’t lose weight? Should you continue to exercise or opt out and focus on hypocaloric weight management method?
Adipose tissue, basically fat tissue, produces hormones and cytokines that are involved in the chronic low grade inflammation. Aerobic exercises are known to reduce the levels of chronic low grade inflammatory cytokines. With or without physical weight loss, reduction in CRP levels and other pro-inflammatory cytokines reduces the risk of exposure to cardiovascular diseases.
Combination of both aerobic and hypocaloric methods is an effective way of reducing and maintaining weight.
The next time you visit a lab, have your CRP levels checked.
