Test Can Spot Strokes Years Off

A simple blood test can help identify healthy people most likely to have a heart attack or stroke years before classic warning signs appear, new research suggests, lending support to a radical new theory about the underlying causes of these leading killers.

The findings indicate that hardened and narrowed arteries, which typically precipitate heart attacks and strokes, are caused by inflammation in blood vessel walls - the same kind of reaction that triggers redness and swelling when a cut gets infected.

Researchers cautioned that it was too soon to recommend widespread use of the test, which looks for a substance called C-reactive protein, a general indicator of inflammation.

But its ability to identify as much as eight years in advance those most likely to get a heart attack or stroke supports the unorthodox notion that inflammation is an even more fundamental cause of hardening of the arteries than is high cholesterol or elevated blood pressure.