Inflammation is the driver of aging, hormonal havoc, and many complaints complicating our daily lives. Yet most physicians won’t mention the word, monitor for it, help you understand, and resolve. Stress, diet, exercise drive these factors. But medically, at WHP we can help you address the factors we can modulate with you.
Currently the best test we have for inflammation dection is C-reactive protein (CRP). There are other blood tests reflecting inflammation: measuring your WBC count or the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR). CRP responds rapidly and directly to infections. But when no infection exists over time it is a reflection of IL-6-driven inflammation. The level of CRP correlates with the intensity of the inflammatory process. ESR inflammation is also a simple blood test but it’s measurement is confounded by anemia, RBC morphology, immunoglobulins, age, sex, and pregnancy, aka less useful as a predictor of heart disease or inflammation.
Inflammation is driven by IL-6
IL-6 is released from any tissue injured or fighting infection. It’s a body’s first responder alarm system. This is a healthy step for when there is infection. Rising IL-6 tells the body to prep, but too much focus on alert mode drives of over-compensation and poor stress. IL-6 triggers the CRP and ESR, both of which we can measure in the blood.
A short burst of inflammation drivers in our body are both normal and protective to fight infection and heal wounds, but the persistently elevated level that some of us have (say if we are suffering from aging, arthritis, menopause) reflects ongoing low-grade inflammation is associated with simple things: drier skin, coarser hair, fuzzy thinking, but longer term a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, and other medical problems.
Menopause and CRP
With the lowering of protective hormones as we enter and progress through menopause we see CRP rise and stay elevated. Some of this is due to VAT (that deep fat around the organs.). However, the use of oral or synthetic estrogens may falsely elevate your CRP reading, making the use less accurate for CVD (cardiovascular disease) prediction.
Prediction of vascular risk with CRP is as important as measuring the cholesterol or blood pressure. The 2025 ACC gave a Scientific Statement affirming this on going, and silent, vascular inflammation is routinely assessed with hsCRP, which provides prognostic information comparable to blood pressure, total cholesterol, and LDL. Furthermore CRP is better than all the alternative markers (fibrinogen, serum amyloid A, WBC count, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, IL-6), most of which are not available in standard, covered lab work. In fact it is an option for those women with normal cholesterol and normal LDL to lower their risk of CVD with statin use if the CRP is elevated.
