Should You Test for Inflammation in Your Body?

From the painful swelling around a sprained ankle to chronic disease, inflammation can significantly affect your health and quality of life. Inflammation has many causes, some less obvious than others. However, several tests can measure the inflammation levels in your body and may help identify the cause.

Keep reading to learn more about these blood tests and whether an inflammatory marker blood test may be right for you.

What is inflammation?

Inflammation is the body's response to injury or infection. Inflammation increases blood flow to the injured area, bringing in white blood cells and other proteins that help to clean up damage, fight infection, and repair the injured tissues. In this way, inflammation is actually beneficial to your body.

However, if the body's checks and balances don't control inflammation, and it continues for long periods of time, it can become chronic, which is not beneficial. Chronic inflammation is one of the most common causes of serious diseases and death worldwide, and the rates are growing.

Is inflammation bad for you?

Because it plays a role in healing, inflammation can be both good and bad. If you've experienced a recent or acute injury, inflammation increases the flow of white blood cells and proteins to the area. This helps remove damaged tissues and bring healing factors to parts of your body affected by injury or infection.

But chronic inflammation, which lasts for months or years, can degrade your body's defenses. Many degenerative diseases are associated with chronic inflammation, including:

• Diabetes
• Heart disease
• Stroke
• Rheumatoid arthritis and other joint disorders
• Allergies
• Respiratory diseases such as COPD
• Obesity

Chronic inflammation is a major risk to long-term health and can lead to disability and early death.

What blood tests check for inflammation?

There are several blood tests that you can take to test for inflammation.

Tests that may be the most useful are:

1. C-reactive protein (CRP)

2. GlycA

Other biomarkers can help provide insight to inflammatory response:

3. Galectin-3

4. Anti-nuclear antibody (ANA)

The following specialized tests can also help diagnose inflammatory disease.

5. Cytokines

6. Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR)

7. Growth factors

8. Advanced immune cell testing

C-reactive protein test explained

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a protein in the blood that rises when inflammation occurs in the body. CRP is made in your liver in response to inflammatory proteins called cytokines. CRP starts to go up within 6-8 hours after tissue damage or the start of an infection. The levels of CRP in the blood rise in proportion to the severity of the inflammation, so the level can give you an idea of how much inflammation is present. As inflammation goes back down, the CRP levels will also decline.

The optimal CRP levels are less than 1.0 mg/L for both men and women, and lower is generally better. Labcorp provides the following reference intervals for its high sensitivity CRP (hsCRP) testing:

• Low risk: <1.0 mg/L
• Average risk: 1.0−3.0 mg/L
• High risk: >3.0 mg/L

Elevated CRP levels are seen with conditions such as autoimmune disease, cancer, bronchitis, heart attacks, and pancreatitis. They can also indicate an infection, systemic inflammation, or trauma.

How can elevated CRP levels affect my health?

CRP is an inflammatory protein, and CRP levels are indicators of inflammation in your body. When interpreting inflammatory tests such as CRP, it's important to consider your overall health picture.

If you've recently had a cold, flu, or mild bacterial infection, CRP levels are normally elevated as your body heals. If CRP levels remain high over time, this can indicate chronic inflammation due to a health condition or a degenerative disease. Heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, autoimmune conditions, respiratory diseases such as asthma or COPD, and even stress can cause C-reactive protein levels to be elevated.

What other biomarkers should you check?

While C-reactive protein levels can give you an indication of your inflammation status, other inflammatory biomarkers can also help assess your health. A complete blood count, or CBC, can help determine whether you have an infection (or had one recently). An elevated white blood cell count can also indicate certain types of cancer.

GlycA is another inflammatory marker that is increased in both acute and chronic inflammation. This marker has been studied recently to predict disease severity and prognosis. Galectin-3 is a biomarker that has shown significant benefit for monitoring chronic inflammation levels, especially for scarring and fibrosis of the heart and liver.

If autoimmune diseases such as lupus are suspected, an anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) level test may be helpful. Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (ESR) is a nonspecific biomarker that can suggest several inflammatory conditions.

How does GlycA detect inflammation?

GlycA is a relatively new biomarker for detecting and monitoring inflammation levels. In some cases, it may be more beneficial than CRP. When inflammation occurs, sugar molecules are attached to proteins in the blood that are responsible for the inflammatory response. GlycA provides a way of measuring glycosylation levels: the amount of protein with sugar molecules attached. This is similar to the way that hemoglobin A1c helps to monitor diabetic control.

Because GlycA reflects multiple inflammatory proteins, it may provide a more stable estimation of whole-body inflammation when compared with other inflammatory markers.

How often should you test for inflammation?

How often you should check inflammatory markers depends on your medical conditions. Your healthcare provider or clinic can help you determine the appropriate testing for you. Some people may want to check once a year. Those with known health conditions or symptoms of chronic inflammation may want to test more frequently. Biomarkers such as CRP and GlycA change rapidly in response to inflammation, so your medical provider may recommend blood tests more often.

How to read my results

So you've had your inflammation levels checked, now what? Interpreting your test results can be tricky, and you need to consider your symptoms and health history when determining what your levels mean. Your healthcare provider can help you understand exactly what your levels mean.

Generally speaking, a higher level of inflammatory markers such as CRP and GlycA indicates greater inflammation in your body. This is expected if you have recently been sick or had a recent injury. However, if you don't have an acute reason, elevated levels may indicate a chronic inflammatory state that can have profound effects on your health.

What should I do with my results?

If you've checked your inflammation levels, talk to your doctor about the results. Monitoring and keeping levels under control is vitally important if you have chronic health conditions, such as diabetes or COPD.

Your doctor can also help you minimize inflammation in your body. They may recommend changes to your diet or lifestyle habits. Several herbs and spices have been shown to reduce inflammation levels, as well as foods and nutrients including:

• Omega-3 fatty acids from oily fish
• Monosaturated fats and oils such as olive or canola oil
• Seeds and nuts
• Whole grains
• Green or black tea
• Seaweed
• Dark berries
• Turmeric
• Basil
• Rosemary
• Sage
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Cardamom

How can I reduce inflammation in my body?

Making healthy lifestyle choices can help you fight back against inflammation.

Research shows regular moderate exercise has anti-inflammatory effects, and daily movement helps you feel better physically and mentally. Regular exercise also helps you lose weight and reduce the abdominal fat that contributes to inflammation.

Treatments like cold and ice therapy can reduce inflammation and are a great option for acute injuries.

Stress has been shown to elevate inflammatory factors, especially long-lasting and repetitive stress. Work on reducing stress in your life to get your levels under control as well.

Sleep deprivation is associated with chronic inflammation, so go to sleep on time and respect your nighttime routine.

The more you know about your body's state, including your inflammation levels, the more control you can have over your health and wellness. A blood test like an inflammation panel is one way to gain valuable insight into this aspect of health.

References

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• Zhou HH, et al. "C-reactive protein: structure, function, regulation, and role in clinical diseases." Front Immunol. June 2024. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11211361/
• Li Y, et al. "Plasma GlycA, a Glycoprotein Marker of Chronic Inflammation, and All-Cause Mortality in Cirrhotic Patients and Liver Transplant Recipients." International Journal of Molecular Science. January 2025. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11765328/
• Mokkala K, et al. "GlycA, a novel marker for low grade inflammation, reflects gut microbiome diversity and is more accurate than high sensitive CRP in reflecting metabolomic profile. Metabolomics. June 2020. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7306047/
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• Ballout RA, et al. "GlycA: A New Biomarker for Systemic Inflammation and Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Risk Assessment." J Lab Precis Med. April 2020. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7194207/
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• Meirow Y, et al. "Immune biomarkers for chronic inflammation related complications in non-cancerous and cancerous diseases." Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy. July 2017. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11029284/
• Connelly MA, et al. "Glyca, a novel biomarker of systemic inflammation and cardiovascular disease risk." Journal of Translational Medicine. October 2017. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29078787/
• Luan YY, et al. "The Clinical Significance and Potential Role of C-Reactive Protein in Chronic Inflammatory and Neurodegenerative Diseases."Front Immunol. June 2018. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6008573/
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• https://www.labcorp.com/tests/120766/c-reactive-protein-crp-high-sensitivity-cardiac-risk-assessment