By 2001, Ridker had presented analyses of CRP's importance from completed studies of statins.
But from the start, Paul Ridker, one of the Harvard investigators, had suggested something else might be at play.
"There have been many people saying that this idea won't work, " says Ridker.
Crestor has been beset by criticism by some over safety issues, but Ridker says he believes the drug is safe.
Ridker planned all along to look at CRP from patients in the trial and see if it made a difference.
"There's a sea change in how doctors think about cardiovascular disease, " says Harvard cardiologist Paul Ridker, a pioneer in studying artery inflammation.
"All I was hoping for was some residual benefit, " Ridker says.
"The willingness of U.S. physicians to so rapidly adopt an unproven therapy is worrisome, " says Paul Ridker, a cardiologist at the Brigham and Woman's Hospital in Boston.
Ridker said the diversity of the participants, including women, African-Americans and Hispanics, is significant because there is limited information on preventing heart disease among those demographic groups.
CNN: Study: Cholesterol drugs could help those with healthy levels
To reach this goal Harvard's Ridker is leading a 15, 000-patient trial testing whether AstraZeneca's statin drug, Crestor, can prevent heart attacks in patients with normal cholesterol levels but high C-reactive protein levels.
Paul Ridker, the Harvard cardiologist who headed up the study, notes that all of these patients should still be taking cholesterol drugs, and that this gene alone probably won't be turned into a diagnostic test.
But the study could also be a big victory for Paul Ridker, the Brigham and Women's Hospital cardiologist who headed up this trial and has spent a lot of his career doing pioneering work on CRP.
Ridker is conducting a study with Crestor, the new statin from AstraZeneca (nyse: AZN - news - people ), to see if treating people with high CRP but low LDL has a benefit.
In Ridker's study, patients with high bad cholesterol, or low-density lipoprotein and high CRP had heart attacks, strokes or heart procedures 9.9% of the time compared with 4.9% of the time for patients where both risks were low.
According to the lead author, Dr. Paul Ridker of the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, the pharmaceutical company had no input in the study's design and didn't see the final data analysis until the study was submitted for publication.
CNN: Study: Cholesterol drugs could help those with healthy levels
Speed thrills: Brigham and Women's Hospital cardiologist Paul Ridker is using Illumina chips in a collaboration with Amgen (nasdaq: AMGN - news - people ) and the NIH to search for genes for osteoporosis and heart disease in women.
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