Despite the propensity of asthma towards cardiovascular morbidity, recently, several epidemiological studies utilizing large numbers of patients with asthma have shown that long term use of ICS is independently associated with a protective effect towards the development of myocardial infarction and cardiovascular mortality, with protective risk at 0.35 (95%CI 0.13-0.93). This effect is possibly mediated through the reduction of low grade systemic inflammation as reflected by plasma hs-CRP from systemic absorption of the ICS.