CRP Tests: An Overview

A layman’s guide to better health:CRP is the ‘C-Reactive Protein’ which is produced by the liver & released in the blood to chase the goose down! It is basically a marker/ signal for the body which tells us that something, deep inside, has gone haywire!. CRP proteins help the fighter cells, like macrophages, to bind to the foreign antigens & also to the damaged cells, enabling them to eliminate the foreign antigens & damaged cells elegantly!Whenever such unwanted microbial/viral invasion occurs, these CRPs immediately jump to action, rapidly increasing their concentration in the blood stream. So, by measuring the CRP concentration, one can actually diagnose a security breach into the body at an early stage. These CRPs also help in phagocytosis (eating up!) of cancerous cells which are treated as “non-self” cells due to presence of some surface markers that are specific to tumors.Not Just some alien micro-invaders, there are many autoimmune diseases and other pathological conditions like arthritis, tissue injury, atherosclerosis & related cardiovascular diseases, Colon & lymph node cancer etc. which lead to a plumping rise in CRP levels. This striking increase in CRPs not only helps in putting up a fight against these disorders via inflammation but also facilitates the early detection of these monstrous disorders, even before their actual symptoms pop up!The other good thing about this rise is that CRP concentrations can easily be detected in a laboratory & nowadays, even individually at home using one of those strip-kits! This means that whenever you think that you are at risk to any of those problems which have multi-syllable names, a CRP test can easily confirm your suspicions. If the levels of the CRP are found to be high, certainly, there’s something wrong & probably, you are suffering from one of those maladies! Therefore, CRP level testing can be used as diagnostic marker/signal to help you & your physician take timely action before it’s too late to act.It has also been found that some patients with increased levels of CRP are the ones who already are at a high risk of diabetes, heart attack & hypertension. CRP testing is therefore recommended by many physicians and clinicians to assess the risk of various concerted pathological conditions in their patients. Since CRP levels drop as inflammation subsides, the test may also be performed at regular intervals to determine the effectiveness of any specific inflammation treatment.Several methods may be used for the analysis, including radioimmunoassay and agglutination employing antibodies specific for CRPs. These methods may take around 2 days for final results. However, there are some CRP testing kits which take less than five minutes to complete and the results are out instantaneously. These tests detect blood levels of C-reactive proteins which appear in the blood during inflammatory responses.CRP is quite sensitive marker for the diagnosis of various inflammatory responses & thus, CRP is an important marker for risk assessment in patients and should be monitored closely using CRP blood tests because some old, & apparently wise, guy said – Prevention is better than Cure & probably, it’s true!