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Reducing the levels of a protein secreted by the body during inflammation may be as powerful in slowing heart disease and preventing heart attacks and deaths as lowering cholesterol, two teams of researchers are reporting. The studies, published in Thursday's issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, provide the strongest evidence yet for the role of the protein, known as CRP for C-reactive protein, in heart disease. The participants were patients with severe heart disease who were taking high doses of statin drugs, which lower both cholesterol and CRP. Lower CRP levels, the researchers found, were linked to a...

<p>The future of heart disease treatment is coming into focus with a growing emphasis on potent drug cocktails that fight obesity, help smokers quit, ease inflammation and restore a healthy blood-cholesterol balance.</p> <p>The shift may arrive in time for many aging baby boomers, doctors say, with several promising drugs undergoing pivotal tests in humans.</p>

Alzheimer's disease can seem unrelentingly grim. There is no cure, no known way to prevent the illness, and the benefits of current treatments are modest at best. But in laboratories around the country, scientists are uncovering clues that may eventually — perhaps even in the next two decades — allow them to prevent, slow or even reverse the ruthless progression of the illness. "Things are more hopeful than perhaps people think," Dr. Karen Duff of the Nathan Kline Institute of New York University said. "We are on the cusp of having something really useful." That hope comes on the heels...

The body's first line of defense just may be the 'root of all evil' | By Karen Kreeger Courtesy of Keith Crutcher IMMUNITY IN MIND: Cultured microglial (N9) cells (red) on a tissue section containing an Alzheimer plaque (green). There is continuing controversy about whether these types of inflammatory cells are responding to plaques or causing them. A finger catches the sharp edge of an envelope; a noseful of tree pollen is accidentally inhaled; the latest virus finds host after human host. In all cases the assaulted body reacts through inflammation, a well known, but not well defined process, especially...