Cholesterol and Inflammation

• The "Spark" vs. the "Fuel": While LDL cholesterol provides the "fuel" for plaque buildup, inflammation acts as the "spark" that causes the actual damage to your artery walls.
• Plaque Stability: Chronic inflammation makes arterial plaques brittle and unstable, which significantly increases the risk that they will rupture and cause a heart attack or stroke.
• LODOCO (low dose cholcicine) is the first approved treatment that targets inflammation in heart patients.
• Managing both cholesterol and inflammation gives the best protection against heart disease.

Heart disease is the leading cause of deaths worldwide, taking millions of lives each year. For a long time, cholesterol was blamed as the main problem.

Now, science shows it's actually a dynamic mix of cholesterol build-up plus chronic inflammation working together to damage your arteries. This inflammation makes plaques unstable, increasing the risk of heart attack or stroke.

Think of it this way: Cholesterol is like the "fuel" that clogs your arteries. Inflammation is the "spark" that can turn that buildup into a dangerous blockage.

What Is Cholesterol and Why Does It Matter?

Cholesterol is a fatty substance your body needs for things like building cells and making hormones. It travels in your blood by lipoproteins.

• LDL ("bad") cholesterol: Too much can stick to your artery walls.
• HDL ("good") cholesterol: Helps clean up the bad stuff.

When LDL is high, it builds up as plaque in your arteries. This narrows them, slows blood flow, and raises the chance of clots.

Diet high in saturated fats and processed foods and lack of exercise make LDL go up and HDL go down.

High cholesterol affects about 94 million adults in the U.S., but only half are treating it. Managing it can lower your heart disease risk by 20-30%.

Inflammation's Role: The Spark That Ignites

Inflammation is your body's repair response to injury or infection, like swelling from a cut. Short-term inflammation is helpful. Chronic, low-grade inflammation simmers silently, triggered by poor diet, stress, obesity, or smoking. In arteries, it destabilizes plaques.

A big 2023 study in The Lancet showed that even after lowering cholesterol with meds, high inflammation still predicted more heart events. People with high inflammation had 30-40% greater risk.

How Cholesterol and Inflammation Harm Your Heart

Heart disease starts when arteries get damaged. Here's the simple process:

1. Damage begins: Things like high blood pressure or smoking hurt the thin lining inside your arteries.
2. Bad cholesterol enters: LDL sneaks into the damaged spots and gets "oxidized" (like rust).
3. Inflammation kicks in: Your immune system sees oxidized LDL as a threat. It sends white blood cells to attack it. These cells swallow the LDL and turn into "foam cells," which release chemicals that cause more swelling.
4. Plaque grows: More cells pile up, forming a cap over the mess. Inflammation can make this cap thin and weak.
5. Danger zone: If the cap breaks (often from strong inflammation), a clot forms quickly. This blocks blood flow, leading to heart attack or stroke.

You can have normal cholesterol but still get heart disease if inflammation is high. And high cholesterol is worse when inflammation is raging.

hsCRP As Inflammation Marker

hsCRP (high-sensitivity C-reactive protein) is a simple blood test that measures low levels of inflammation in your body.

Your liver makes C-reactive protein (CRP) when there's inflammation anywhere, from an infection, injury, or ongoing issues like clogged arteries.

The "high-sensitivity" version picks up even tiny amounts that regular tests miss. A higher hsCRP level (usually above 2 mg/L) can signal chronic low-grade inflammation, which raises your risk for heart disease, stroke, and other problems.

In people with existing heart disease, hs‑CRP can predict future events as well as LDL levels.

Medication That Targets Inflammation

LODOCO is the first approved anti-inflammatory treatment that lowers the risk of cardiac events. DLODOCO can reduce the risk of a cardiac event in patients with cardiovascular disease by 31%.

How LODOCO Works

LODOCO contains a low dose of colchicine, a medicine that helps calm down inflammation in the body. Here’s what colchicine does:

• It slows down certain white blood cells that cause inflammation.
• It reduces proteins that trigger inflammation signals.
• It helps lower hs‑CRP, which is often high when inflammation is present.

Why this matters: Lowering inflammation can make your arteries more stable and reduce the risk of heart problems. While researchers are still learning exactly how LODOCO protects the heart, studies show it works to reduce inflammation and heart risk.

What You Can Control

You have a lot of power here. Healthy changes hit both cholesterol and inflammation at once.

• The Anti-Inflammatory Diet: The Mediterranean Diet is the gold standard for heart health. Focus on fatty fish (Omega-3s), leafy greens, olive oil, and berries. Avoid highly processed sugars and trans fats, which are known "pro-inflammatory" triggers.
• Movement: Regular aerobic exercise acts as an anti-inflammatory for the vascular system. 30 minutes of brisk walking five days a week can significantly lower CRP levels.
• Weight Management: Fat tissue, particularly around the abdomen (visceral fat), acts like an organ that pumps out inflammatory chemicals. Losing even a small amount of weight can "quiet" this chemical production.
• Smoking Cessation: Smoking is perhaps the most aggressive inflammatory trigger for the arteries. It causes immediate damage to the endothelium and spikes CRP levels.

Bottom Line

Controlling cholesterol is no longer enough. Inflammation plays an equally important role in heart disease. But it’s something you can influence through lifestyle, tests, and medications. Talk to your healthcare provider about adding hs‑CRP testing or anti-inflammatory treatment to your plan. With both cholesterol and inflammation managed, you maximize your protection against heart disease.