This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related letter  • Related article  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Journalology/ Peer Review/ Authorship  • Cardiovascular Disease/ Myocardial Infarction  • Genetics, Other  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: In their study of polymorphisms in the C-reactive protein (CRP) gene, Dr Lange and colleagues¹ found that genetic variation in the CRP gene was associated with CRP levels and that genetic variants were differentially associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) events in white and black participants. The authors base their hypothesis on an analogous earlier study showing that the association of a PSSK9 variant with both low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and CVD suggested that lifelong reduction in LDL-C would reduce CVD.

The likely effect of treatments targeting modifiable risk factors for CVD depends on robust causal inference of the risk factor–disease relationship, which is aided by mendelian randomization methods. Because these methods involve formally combining the CRP gene and gene-disease associations,² it is disappointing that Lange et al did not use their results to provide an estimate of the causal effect of CRP on CVD risk for . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Debbie A. Lawlor, PhD
d.a.lawlor@bristol.ac.uk

Nic Timpson, BA; Roger Harbord, MSc
Department of Social Medicine
University of Bristol
Bristol, England

Shah Ebrahim, DM
Department of Epidemiology and Population Health
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
London, England

George Davey Smith, DSc
Department of Social Medicine
University of Bristol
Bristol, England

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED LETTER

Polymorphisms in the CRP Gene and Cardiovascular Events—Reply
Leslie A. Lange, Ethan M. Lange, Russell P. Tracy, and Alexander P. Reine
JAMA. 2007;297(12):1317-1318.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

RELATED ARTICLE

Association of Polymorphisms in the CRP Gene With Circulating C-Reactive Protein Levels and Cardiovascular Events
Leslie A. Lange, Christopher S. Carlson, Lucia A. Hindorff, Ethan M. Lange, Jeremy Walston, J. Peter Durda, Mary Cushman, Joshua C. Bis, Donglin Zeng, Danyu Lin, Lewis H. Kuller, Deborah A. Nickerson, Bruce M. Psaty, Russell P. Tracy, and Alexander P. Reiner
JAMA. 2006;296(22):2703-2711.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT