Over 17,000 healthy men and women, with cholesterol lower than 130 mg/dL and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels of 2 mg/L of blood or above were assigned to either 20 mg of the statin Crestor (rosuvastatin), or a placebo daily. The CRP can be measured like cholesterol in a simple bloodtest and detects inflammation. It is often already covered by insurance. After a follow-up of 1.9 years, the rosuvastatin control group was almost 50 percent less likely to suffer a stroke or need angioplasty or bypass surgery, and they were 20 percent less likely to die. Considering that half of the heart attacks occur in people with normal cholesterol, the broad use of a high-sensitivity CRP test can help to target persons that normally wouldn’t be screened, but are candidates for treatment.

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