In this regard, we found a significant positive correlation between GDF-15 and inflammation (expressed as a high C-reactive protein), but the exact relationship to atherosclerosis in our study is to be further ascertained, given the fact that C-reactive protein is a non-specific marker, being a validated predictor of poor prognosis in both cardiac [43,44] and non-cardiac pathologies [45]. The gene discussed is GDF15; the disease is atherosclerosis.