Long-term interleukin-6 levels and subsequent risk of coronary heart disease: two new prospective studies and a systematic review.
BackgroundThe relevance to coronary heart disease (CHD) of cytokines that govern inflammatory cascades, such as interleukin-6 (IL-6), may be underestimated because such mediators are short acting and prone to fluctuations.We evaluated associations of long-term circulating IL-6 levels with CHD risk (defined as nonfatal myocardial infarction [MI] or