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's all immune activity.
When you need it, it's a net good, but you don't want any of that going on when you don't need it.
Increasingly people seem to have more immune activity than they should and it causes cumulative low grade damage.
That's the "systemic inflammation" that you'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.
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.
The C reactive protein itself doesn't cause symptoms on its own. It's produced by the liver in response to signals from immune cells.
It actually binds to bacteria in circulation, so if anything it helps.
As a data point, it can vary by >1000x during the course of a disease, and won't be something that people feel or complain about separate from the other symptoms.
The underlying cause of the inflammation usually does produce other symptoms though.
Think fatigue, joints, stuff like that.
It's one of the many biomarkers that can alert people to change their lifestyle and diet.
When they do, they usually feel much better and there will be a reduction in inflammatory markers coincidental with them feeling better.
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's all immune activity.
When you need it, it's a net good, but you don't want any of that going on when you don't need it. Increasingly people seem to have more immune activity than they should and it causes cumulative low grade damage. That's the "systemic inflammation" that you'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.