Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston have found that human fat cells produce a protein that is linked to both inflammation and an increased risk of heart disease and stroke. They say the discovery, reported in Journal of the American College of Cardiology, goes a long way to explain why people who are overweight generally have higher levels of the molecule, known as C-reactive protein (CRP), which is now used diagnostically to predict future cardiovascular events.And they also report some good news: the researchers found that aspirin and statin drugs, now commonly used to treat heart diseases, effectively damp down production of CRP from fat cells."This study is the first to show how body fat participates in the inflammatory process that leads to cardiovascular disease, but also demonstrates that this process can be blocked by drugs now on the market,” said study leader Edward T. H. Yeh, M.D., who is both chairman of the Department of Cardiology at M. D. Anderson and director of the Research Center for Cardiovascular Disease at the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases at the UT Health Science Center at Houston.UT Health Science Center at Houston President James T. Willerson, M.D., is a co-author of the study.
