CTSB and atherosclerosis: These results revealed that there was a certain dynamic equilibrium in human tissues between cysteine proteases and cystatin C. Cysteine proteases increase with the aggravation of the activity of atherosclerosis, which contribute to an increase in cystatin C. Moreover, Ganda A et al. found that serum cystatin C levels were positively corrected with blood monocyte counts after adjusted traditional risk factors [30].