CRP unlikely to be causal for CVD

British authors of a large meta-analysis exploring C-reactive protein (CRP) levels and risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke have concluded that CRP is unlikely to be a causal factor for cardiovascular disease. Although CRP concentration was linearly associated with CHD, stroke, vascular and nonvascular mortality, statistical adjustment for conventional cardiovascular risk factors "resulted in considerable weakening of associations," the researchers wrote in the Lancet. Using records of more than 160,000 participants from 54 medical surveys, researchers found that risk ratios per 1-SD higher CRP concentration were 1.63 for coronary heart disease, 1.44 for ischemic stroke, 1.71 for vascular mortality and 1.55 for non-vascular mortality when adjusted for age and sex only. However, the ratios changed to 1.27, 1.55, 1.54 and 1.34 respectively when other risk factors such as blood pressure, history of diabetes, BMI and total cholesterol were taken into account. In line with other studies, associations of CRP with vascular and non-vascular outcomes were broadly similar,...