Elevated Inflammatory Markers

Inflammation is your body’s response to injury or infection. It can occur immediately after injury, during the healing process, or can be an ongoing process of breakdown and repair of tissues. A protein is usually released at the site of inflammation, which can be detected in the blood stream. These proteins act as inflammatory markers, indicating that there is some form of injury or infection. Simple blood tests are performed to measure the levels of inflammatory markers when you have symptoms such as fever, muscle pain and arthritis, which cannot be explained. Blood is drawn from your vein and sent to the laboratory for analysis.

The most commonly used inflammatory markers are:

• C-reactive protein (CRP): CRP is produced by the liver when there is inflammation. Elevated CRP indicates inflammation that may be due to conditions such as cancer, infection, rheumatic fever, pneumonia, tuberculosis and connective tissue disease.

At Healthy Living Dallas we believe that science has shown that inflammation is the true underlying cause for most chronic diseases and we check these levels very carefully. Our sophisticated blood work includes hs-C-reactive protein and many cardiac-specific advanced inflammatory markers such as fibrinogen, myeloperoxidase, Lp-PLA2, Endothelin, interleukin-6, interleukin-17A, and TNF-alpha.