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| home : pages : what's new in medicine vol. 6 : new blood test can warn of heart attack : | |||||
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NEW BLOOD TEST CAN WARN OF HEART ATTACKTests available today, among them troponin blood tests and or EKGs, often do not detect heart attacks until hours after they have occurred.For instance, troponin is a protein usually found in heart muscle cells. By the time it turns up in an emergency blood test, the damage is done. C-reactive protein test can identify people with inflamed arteries who someday might have a heart attack. But the new study shows that C-reactive protein is an unreliable measure of heart attack risk, especially in people with a positive troponin test. The new test measures the enzyme MYELOPERXIDASE, or MPO, made in white blood cells. The enzyme is produced when arteries are inflamed and have rupture-prone fatty deposits. It's a very easy test to measure (Dr. Topol, of the Cleveland Clinic). Those with the highest levels of MPO face fourfold increased risk of a cardiac crisis within two months. Heart disease typically begins with unhealthy blood vessels that develop fatty deposits called plaques. When plaques become inflamed and burst, they send blood clots and particles flooding downstream. Large ones may clog major vessels causing massive heart attack or strokes. Smaller particle lodge in smaller vessels, causing what's known as unstable angina. A second study by researchers at Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, showed for the first time low levels of the enzyme glutathione also suggest a coming heart attack. Ref: USA Today, 10/2003 Klebanoff, Peroxidases in Chemistry and Biology, pp. 1-35, Press Boston, 10001. www.oxfordbiomed.com -- Human Myeloperoxidation assay kit ($190.00). --> return to menu / back ... (click) --> return to top of the page (click) |
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