Thank you for linking. The first few paragraphs sound like this is kind of big deal, like print out and read.

The article is merely summarizing new recommendations from the American College of Cardiology. You can read the source if you prefer it: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jacc.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.jacc.2025.08.047" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jacc.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.jacc.2025.08.047</a>

I certainly get the skepticism. You might find the JACC article (which is an American College of Cardiology consensus statement) interesting, since the ACC is a neutral party here (and reviewed all the evidence around hs-CRP).

Yes, and the internet has helped quite a bit with this.
Instead of a small group of people having access to research through university or hospital publishing networks, everything circulates on the internet for anyone to look at.My prediction is that this leads to many secular trends in diet and lifestyle. People have called keto a fad, but to me it looks like what happens when basic human endocrinology and how to manipulate it becomes widely known.
I don&#x27;t expect people to go back to high carb&#x2F;low fat diets as a weight loss intervention, ever, even once the hype has worn off.

In fairness, the literature has been trending this way for a long time. Well before anyone had figured out a way to profit off of it.

I&#x27;m wary of trusting new health science from a company trying to sell me the cure to what they just discovered was the _real cause_ of my ills.This article might be truthful, it might not. But it is absolutely trying to sell you something.

Just thinking out loud here, but I wonder if the immune activity is not the problem, but some kind of destructive process that is triggering the immune response. A continuous onslaught of destruction tends to make things break down faster.

This is a good question.Inflammation broadly refers to destructive immune activity (or sometimes any immune activity).
If you get a cut, immune cells show up, they kill germs, sometimes they kill somatic cells too.
Different cells show up to heal and close the wound.
That&#x27;s all immune activity.When you need it, it&#x27;s a net good, but you don&#x27;t want any of that going on when you don&#x27;t need it.
Increasingly people seem to have more immune activity than they should and it causes cumulative low grade damage.
That&#x27;s the &quot;systemic inflammation&quot; that you&#x27;ve probably heard about.hs-CRP (high sensitivity C-reactive protein) is a test which seems to be a good biomarker for systemic inflammation, although CRP is just one chemical involved in immune activity.This article is advocating for using that particular biomarker (related to systemic inflammation) to predict heart disease.

Chronic inflammation (a general systemic thing) is the thing we&#x27;re mostly concerned about for heart health. The hs-CRP metric itself will pick up both acute inflammation (if you get sick) and chronic inflammation.

Could it be either of these studies?“Dietary Intervention to Reverse Carotid Atherosclerosis” (Circulation, 2010) — participants were randomized to low-fat, Mediterranean, or low-carbohydrate diets; carotid arteries were imaged with 3-D ultrasound cross-sections at baseline and follow-up. After 2 years there was a ~5% regression in carotid vessel-wall volume, with similar regression across all diets (i.e., including the low-carb arm). [1]Volek et al., 2009 (Metabolism) — 12-week very-low-carb vs low-fat trial; ultrasound of the brachial artery showed improved post-prandial flow-mediated dilation (a marker of endothelial function&#x2F;inflammation) in the low-carb group. Not carotid 3-D slices, but still vascular imaging with before&#x2F;after comparisons. [2][1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ahajournals.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;pdf&#x2F;10.1161&#x2F;CIRCULATIONAHA.109.879254" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ahajournals.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;pdf&#x2F;10.1161&#x2F;CIRCULATIONAHA.1...</a>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lowcarbaction.org&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2019&#x2F;12&#x2F;Volek-et-al-Effects-of-Dietary-Carbohydrate-Restriction-Versus-Low-fat-Diet-on-Flow-mediated-Dilation.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lowcarbaction.org&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2019&#x2F;12&#x2F;Volek-e...</a>

I have always read it as systemic. Which is why low carb diets seem to do wonders for a lot of people&#x27;s cardiovascular systems, somewhat paradoxically. If you go really low carb (&lt;20g &#x2F; day), the first week or two you can lose a ton of weight, but much of it is water, which detractors point to as &quot;well, you&#x27;re not losing fat!&quot; But, imagine what this does for inflammation. That is 7 pounds of fluid you are no longer carrying and pumping against. It&#x27;s basically a gallon. The first round of keto I did, I lost a ton of weight the first month (~20 lbs), and my blood pressure plummeted to the point where I was dizzy all the time, and I had to supplement with salt and magnesium. I remember a study I read probably 15 years ago where they looked at cross-sections of arteries before and after starting a ketogenic diet, and there was significant reduction in inflammation after just a few weeks, IIRC. I just tried finding it on pubmed, but can&#x27;t find the right incantation of search terms to dredge it up. There are countless studies like this.I&#x27;ve been mostly on a keto diet since 2014, and it is probably the most important health choice I&#x27;ve ever made. At the time I worked in Neurology at a Children&#x27;s hospital, and a keto diet is one of the treatment options for epilepsy. I talked with the clinical dietician at the time, and asked if these kids were having heart attacks in their 20s. On the contrary, much of the department was on the diet, or a low glycemic diet, as was much of the oncology dept. Obviously, this is an N of 1, and I&#x27;m not an MD, but every single aspect of my physiological and mental health has improved over the last 10+ years.

Upvoted because I was going to ask the same thing: What is &quot;inflammation&quot; in this context?

&gt; Keep your oxidative stress low and you will not get heart disease.I think we should always be careful when we speak in absolutes. The conclusion from the article:&gt; This result suggests that oxidative stress may be a determinant of [C-reactive protein] levels and promote pro-atherosclerotic inflammatory processes at the earliest stages of [coronary heart disease] development.I&#x27;m not saying the result is wrong, but I am saying &quot;if you A you will not get B&quot; is over-promising.

&gt; Keep your oxidative stress low and you will not get heart disease.if you take this advice literally, you should stop exercising

Easier said than done. Even microplastics have been liked to oxidative stress and inflammation.

CRP is a protein produced by the liver in response to inflammation. Elevated CRP levels indicate inflammation in the bodY.High levels of CRP are associated with high levels of oxidative stress.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;15585208&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;15585208&#x2F;</a>Inflammation is a synonym for high levels of oxidative stress. Keep your oxidative stress low and you will not get heart disease.

Does &quot;inflammation&quot; refer to a general systemic thing? Or does this refer to something specific such as tendonitis or inflammation due to injury?

Curious about infliximab being unhelpful or even harmful for cardiovascular risk; I&#x27;m not sure if there were any confounding factors re. people on infliximab not generally being in great health to begin with. But back when I was on infliximab I had some not-awesome systemic side effects, so I wouldn&#x27;t be chocked if it&#x27;s just not great for your cardiovascular health in general. (And that&#x27;s still probably a worthwhile tradeoff if you&#x27;re the kind of person who&#x27;s being prescribed infliximab.)

It is, but as siblings note the evidence is real. You can purchase the test directly from Labcorp for $59 – <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ondemand.labcorp.com&#x2F;lab-tests&#x2F;inflammation-hs-crp-test" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ondemand.labcorp.com&#x2F;lab-tests&#x2F;inflammation-hs-c...</a>

Is this an advertisement? There&#x27;s a CTA for a $190 service above the fold.

Have you measured your Lp(a)? It&#x27;s the strongest hereditary risk factor for heart disease. (Each Lp(a) particle is essentially a &quot;normal&quot; cholesterol particle with an extra protein that makes it 6x more atherogenic.)

Eating excessive saturated fat is what your liver turns into too much &quot;bad cholesterol&quot; and what you need to watch if you&#x27;re having cholesterol problems. Cholesterol in food doesn&#x27;t usually translate to you having more cholesterol in your blood.

&gt; sat fat matter more to blood cholesterol than food cholesterolCan you expand on this? I don&#x27;t understand.

I have genetically high cholesterol. But otherwise I exercise quite a lot and healthy. I’ve been told not to worry about cholesterol unless other indicators start to climb. So I just generally avoid high saturated fat foods (sat fat in food matters more to blood cholesterol than food cholesterol).

I dont know the direct answer to your question, and am not a Doctor nor researcher... but using a generally applicable health pattern -- it&#x27;s important not to equate acute anything with chronic anything. Eg: Acute fat loss via exercising while fasting does not seem to relate to body composition changes over 12 weeks. Similarly the self protective process of hormesis seems to actually create greater health - like reactions to heat from sauna usages for example.

Fundamentally weight lifting should reduce inflammation, but at the same time I’m less certain about how things like protein powders or very high protein intake factor into this.

I believe IBD only had a slight impact on all cause mortality figures.

I&#x27;d guess this is persistent, systemic inflammation. So I, as someone with IBD, have higher levels of CRP, so am probably a prime candidate for this kind of early death (despite having quite good cholesterol)

Anyone know how weight lifting might be related to this?Weight lifting causes short bursts of inflammation right after training, which is part of the repair process. But in general it is considered very beneficial.

You should actually read the article. In particular:&gt; Fourteen trials recruited patients with specific conditions (raised lipids, diabetes, hypertension, microalbuminuria). All‐cause mortality was reduced by statins (OR 0.86, 95% CI 0.79 to 0.94); as was combined fatal and non‐fatal CVD RR 0.75 (95% CI 0.70 to 0.81), combined fatal and non‐fatal CHD events RR 0.73 (95% CI 0.67 to 0.80) and combined fatal and non‐fatal stroke (RR 0.78, 95% CI 0.68 to 0.89). Reduction of revascularisation rates (RR 0.62, 95% CI 0.54 to 0.72) was also seen.So the evidence base is a collection of studies where most of the participants had at least one prior indicator of CVD or diabetes, and their outcome is a relatively weak benefit to all-cause mortality, CVD, CHD and stroke. For primary prevention, what you really want is a strong outcome in a study of people without any prior indication of disease.I think the article posted by parent is exaggerating, but even the Cochrane review is pulling its punches here, saying specifically &quot;cost-effective in primary prevention&quot;, instead of the stronger claim. Common jokes about putting statins in the water supply aside, there&#x27;s not a ton of evidence for giving them to, say, otherwise healthy 20-somethings.

And after 2013 in the BMJ on statins:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bmj.com&#x2F;campaign&#x2F;statins-open-data" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bmj.com&#x2F;campaign&#x2F;statins-open-data</a>

It’s not that lowering cholesterol does not decrease heart disease, but the fundamental problem of heart disease is not cholesterol, it’s the inflammation.Lowering cholesterol lowers the amount of oxidized cholesterol that is caused from inflammation. The fact is is that in inflammation is the fundamental disorder, not high cholesterol on its own.

From <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cochrane.org&#x2F;evidence&#x2F;CD004816_statins-primary-prevention-cardiovascular-disease" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cochrane.org&#x2F;evidence&#x2F;CD004816_statins-primary-p...</a>:&gt; Of 1000 people treated with a statin for five years, 18 would avoid a major CVD event which compares well with other treatments used for preventing cardiovascular disease. Taking statins did not increase the risk of serious adverse effects such as cancer. Statins are likely to be cost-effective in primary prevention.

It&#x27;s true that most doctors and pharmaceutical companies maintain that statins are effective. But there are plenty of statistically educated people that don&#x27;t think they have much of an effect on all-cause mortality.There are conflicting incentives here, and as usual we don&#x27;t care about someone else&#x27;s p value, we care about argmaxing our own utility functions.

&gt; This is not a mainstream view of the science, and it&#x27;s worth noting that this perspective is also not supported by the OP or by the JACC article that it&#x27;s citing.Your comment is an appeal to authority. While I have my problems with characterizing statins as dangerous drugs, the article is not particularly spicy. In particular, this part:&gt; Because the link between excessive LDL cholesterol and cardiovascular disease has been so widely accepted, the Food and Drug Administration generally has not required drug companies to prove that cholesterol medicines (such as statins) actually reduce heart attacks before approval. So drug companies have not had to track whether episodes like heart attacks are reduced....is true, and controversial only amongst people who don&#x27;t know the evidence. Which, unfortunately, is many doctors and &quot;experts&quot;.In general, saying any variation on &quot;experts disagree&quot; is not a rebuttal to a question of medical evidence. You would perhaps be surprised to know how many practicing physicians have no idea what level of evidence backs the drugs that they prescribe.

And my understanding of the science is that statins reduce inflammation.

This is not a mainstream view of the science, and it&#x27;s worth noting that this perspective is also not supported by the OP or by the JACC article that it&#x27;s citing.

But statins are incredibly good at reducing inflammation anyway.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC5633715&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC5633715&#x2F;</a>

Not really, the evidence that ldl causes heart disease and statins prevent deaths is very, very, very strong (lots of clinical trials, lots of causal evidence e.g. Mendelian randomization). LDL is extremely harmful!

I&#x27;m unaware of any evidence for ppcsk9 inhibitors outside of the same cohorts (people with existing CVD) that the OP is citing.Do you have any?

What a boatload of crap.&gt; Statins can be beneficial in patients who have already suffered heart attacks. Cholesterol lowering is not the reason for the benefit of statins. If it was, lowering cholesterol via any means should have produced the same benefit, but it doesn’t.What a blatant lie! Ppcsk9 inhibitors have produced excellent results, even better than statins.

It&#x27;s a bad blog post for sure. However, I&#x27;ve a few smart people say that lower cholesterol may not be what makes statins powerful: it&#x27;s the anti-inflammatory properties. I&#x27;m too lazy to find papers right now.

That&#x27;s a hot take of a blog post.Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The cholesterol to heart disease link is one of the best attested in medical science [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15]And yet when making this very extraordinary claim, the author fails to cite any quantitative data for or against. He does not even attempt to build a qualitative argument by proposing a mechanistic theory of why cholesterol is unlikely to be causative of heart disease. Then he goes on to claim that doctors don&#x27;t have hard evidence to show that statins reduce the incidence of heart disease, despite the fact that such evidence exists [5]. The post is just 10 paragraphs of fluff that boil down to &#x27;don&#x27;t trust the medico-industrial complex&#x27;Honestly, I think that blog post is a litmus test on scientific literacy - What convinces you more, data and numbers and charts and tests of statistical significance, or rail-against-the-machine rhetoric and a few scary sounding quotes provided without the associated context?[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jamanetwork.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;jama&#x2F;article-abstract&#x2F;192160" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jamanetwork.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;jama&#x2F;article-abstract&#x2F;19216...</a>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;25815993&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;25815993&#x2F;</a>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jamanetwork.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;jamacardiology&#x2F;article-abstract&#x2F;2537381" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jamanetwork.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;jamacardiology&#x2F;article-abst...</a>[4] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ahajournals.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;abs&#x2F;10.1161&#x2F;01.CIR.67.4.730" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ahajournals.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;abs&#x2F;10.1161&#x2F;01.CIR.67.4.730</a>[5] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jamanetwork.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;jama&#x2F;fullarticle&#x2F;2678614" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jamanetwork.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;jama&#x2F;fullarticle&#x2F;2678614</a>[6] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;32507339&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;32507339&#x2F;</a>[7] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tandfonline.com&#x2F;doi&#x2F;abs&#x2F;10.1080&#x2F;07315724.2008.10719668" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tandfonline.com&#x2F;doi&#x2F;abs&#x2F;10.1080&#x2F;07315724.2008.10...</a>[8] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;18061058&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;18061058&#x2F;</a>[9] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jacc.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;abs&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.jacc.2022.03.384" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jacc.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;abs&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.jacc.2022.03.384</a>[10] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41598-021-00020-3" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41598-021-00020-3</a>[11] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ahajournals.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;full&#x2F;10.1161&#x2F;JAHA.123.030496" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ahajournals.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;full&#x2F;10.1161&#x2F;JAHA.123.030496</a>[12] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41467-024-46686-x" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41467-024-46686-x</a>[13] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sciencedirect.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;article&#x2F;pii&#x2F;S0021915023001144" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sciencedirect.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;article&#x2F;pii&#x2F;S002191502...</a>[14] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;link.springer.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;10.1186&#x2F;s12872-021-01971-1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;link.springer.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;10.1186&#x2F;s12872-021-01971-1</a>[15] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jstage.jst.go.jp&#x2F;article&#x2F;jat&#x2F;31&#x2F;3&#x2F;31_64369&#x2F;_article&#x2F;-char&#x2F;ja&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jstage.jst.go.jp&#x2F;article&#x2F;jat&#x2F;31&#x2F;3&#x2F;31_64369&#x2F;_arti...</a>

Cholesterol and statins have always been suspect science in any case:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;@petilon&#x2F;cholesterol-and-statins-e7d9d8eea983" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;@petilon&#x2F;cholesterol-and-statins-e7d9d8ee...</a>

Exercise actually increases oxidative stress.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC7498668&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC7498668&#x2F;</a>What lowers oxidative stress is nutrition, specifically selenium, vitamin C, manganese, zinc, and copper.

It&#x27;s quite a lot harder than just taking a pill every day, of course.

Homeless are walking (exercise) miles daily 365&#x2F;7 yet they are unhealthy. lol

Exercise.I don&#x27;t even know. But exercise is the god-tier reigning champion of all things health. You can count on it pretty reliably to show up as a positive effect source in any health study.&quot;Just exercise&quot; should be a meme at this point.

Not sure why this is downvoted, this is correct on all points. I&#x27;ve been on a journey to lower chronic inflammation and you would not believe how hard it is to find stuff that doesn&#x27;t have &quot;fragrance&quot; or other mysterious potentially-inflammation-causing substances.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cancerblog.mayoclinic.org&#x2F;2025&#x2F;02&#x2F;17&#x2F;want-to-reduce-chronic-inflammation-start-with-your-grocery-list&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cancerblog.mayoclinic.org&#x2F;2025&#x2F;02&#x2F;17&#x2F;want-to-reduce-...</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;health.clevelandclinic.org&#x2F;anti-inflammatory-diet" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;health.clevelandclinic.org&#x2F;anti-inflammatory-diet</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;health.clevelandclinic.org&#x2F;foods-that-can-cause-inflammation" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;health.clevelandclinic.org&#x2F;foods-that-can-cause-infl...</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.heartandstroke.ca&#x2F;articles&#x2F;the-anti-inflammatory-diet" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.heartandstroke.ca&#x2F;articles&#x2F;the-anti-inflammatory...</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;health.osu.edu&#x2F;health&#x2F;general-health&#x2F;how-fragrances-affect-health" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;health.osu.edu&#x2F;health&#x2F;general-health&#x2F;how-fragrances-...</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC9163252&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC9163252&#x2F;</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amjmed.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;S0002-9343(25)00549-2&#x2F;abstract" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amjmed.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;S0002-9343(25)00549-2&#x2F;abstrac...</a>

Avoid allergenic foods, Highly processed foods. Get plenty of sleep. Manage stress. Avoid toxins like alcohol or smoking. Avoid chemical irritants including perfumes, dyes, fragrances in detergent or soap, ….

GLP-1s.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.derekthompson.org&#x2F;p&#x2F;why-does-it-seem-like-glp-1-drugs" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.derekthompson.org&#x2F;p&#x2F;why-does-it-seem-like-glp-1-...</a> (Control-F &quot;Theory 2: GLP-1 is a miraculous “moderation molecule,” and it has docking portals all throughout the body that reduce inflammation.&quot;)<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.health.harvard.edu&#x2F;diseases-and-conditions&#x2F;do-glp-1-drugs-reduce-inflammation" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.health.harvard.edu&#x2F;diseases-and-conditions&#x2F;do-gl...</a>

Prednisone and other corticosteroids. They are not good to use long term for many reasons.There is no free lunch or magic bullet (yet) to health. We&#x27;re all going to die.

I saw an interesting video that mentioned a study. 
Even though 10K steps a day is considered an arbitrary amount, this study found that level of activity counteracted inflammation.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;bDGA82wts2g?t=2015&amp;si=lmZeD_KE1F7TvOPA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;bDGA82wts2g?t=2015&amp;si=lmZeD_KE1F7TvOPA</a>

&gt; Lifestyle: Anti-inflammatory diets (Mediterranean, DASH), regular exercise, smoking cessation, and maintaining a healthy weight all lower hs-CRP and reduce risk.also they list a big list of drugs that are in various stages

Just to throw into the mix: apparently sitting in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber does. Who would&#x27;ve thought.

Lifestyle.Not sitting a lot (more than 1 hour at a time), walking or cycling everywhere, not eating a kot of sugar&#x2F;refined carbs..

Please be very careful with low dose aspirin.I am 5 months into NSAID Gastritis. Would not recommend.

I was taking a lot of Ibuprofen due to frequent illnesses while simultaneously needing to be healthy. I started to get terrible heartburn that caused me to hunch over at times. Tried dietary changes. Finally, I happened to read that this and ulcers is a side effect of NSAIDs. Switched to acetaminophen, and was generally more judicious about taking fever meds, and I haven’t had heartburn in months now.

Low dose aspirin can lower inflammation.

Improvements in diet, stress, and environment.

Statins also have an anti-inflammatory response.

So statins lower LDL; what lowers inflammation?

So does this mean apoB or hs-CRP is a better predictor of heart disease?

It’s important to put this in context.Lp(a) is a largely distinct risk factor from “ordinary” cholesterol and cannot be changed by diet or exercise. 
Survey papers show practically no effective treatment (statins help all cause mortality in patients but do not lower lp(a)). 
There are two (iirc) ongoing trials for new, effective drugs. But those are not available yet and will probably be prohibitively expensive, going by the advertisements that the companies run.So yeah, get an Lp(a) test once (it doesn’t vary too much over time) and reduce your other risk factors, but don’t put too much hope into an easy solution to this specific cause yet.edit: found the two papers that were a good read:Kamstrup, P. R. (2021). Lipoprotein(a) and Cardiovascular Disease. Clinical Chemistry, 67(1), 154–166. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1093&#x2F;clinchem&#x2F;hvaa247" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1093&#x2F;clinchem&#x2F;hvaa247</a>Schwartz, G. G., &amp; Ballantyne, C. M. (2022). Existing and emerging strategies to lower Lipoprotein(a). Atherosclerosis, 349, 110–122. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.atherosclerosis.2022.04.020" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.atherosclerosis.2022.04.020</a>

I suspect Lp(a) is next, since there are now drugs in clinical trials that directly lower it.

Very interesting recommendation - very much in line with this paper from a few weeks ago: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;40878356&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;40878356&#x2F;</a>TLDR: women who would otherwise be missed by current algorithms might be picked up by this inflammatory marker (hs-CRP)

Single authorUnknown editorNo journal? Committee? Conference?Ew.

Oh yes I agree with you. This seems important.

&gt; The ACC is now recommending that everyone measure inflammation (specifically, hs-CRP)Burying the lede a little, here. The ACC has decided on a standard way to measure inflammation, which decades ago was a centerpiece of some very woo-woo &quot;following the squizledoff diet will decrease your gomperblorp&quot;-style health &#x27;advice&#x27;. &quot;Systemic inflammation&quot; was a very tricky physiological parameter to nail down.

Recommended in addition to cholesterol (or better yet, ApoB). And recommended for everyone, not just those taking statins.

Does this mean this test is recommenced in place of cholesterol for people who are not taking statins? Or is the test in addition?

It&#x27;s more the former -- we&#x27;ve gotten so good at detecting high cholesterol and reducing it, that the majority of residual risk is now in the other factors.(There are some people who dispute whether cholesterol is causative, but most cardiologists believe LDL cholesterol, or ApoB, causes heart attacks and strokes --based on both mechanistic evidence and randomized control trials.)

Thanks for the summary! I haven’t read tfa yet, so my apologies if this is answered in there, but: does this mean that we’ve already reduced the contribution from cholesterol to events? Or that cholesterol was simply associated and not causative? I imagine the truth is somewhere in between, perhaps we can guess that’s it’s 70% due to one and 30% due to the other?

This is a summary -- I&#x27;m the article author and the author of that comment, so I would hope my wording is consistent. :)

Is this...a summary? The wording is so close to the article in parts that I&#x27;m not sure.

For decades, LDL cholesterol has been the main target in preventive heart health.The American College of Cardiology just started recommending that everyone measure hs-CRP, a blood test for inflammation. Why? Because inflammation now predicts cardiovascular events more accurately than cholesterol — especially in people already on statins or those without traditional risk factors.In some ways, cholesterol has become a victim of its own success. With routine screening and statins, most heart attack patients now have artificially lowered cholesterol. That leaves the remaining risk hidden in non-traditional biomarkers — beyond the usual SMuRFs (standard modifiable risk factors).

Inflammation now predicts heart disease more strongly than cholesterol