Home > Homocysteine

Note: need homocysteine structure about here.

Homocysteine is attracting attention because a high level of blood serum homocysteine is now considered to be a marker of potential heart problems. Note that, as a consequence of the chemistry in which homocysteine is involved, deficiencies of the vitamins folic acid, pyridoxine (B-6), or cobalamin (B-12) can lead to high homocysteine levels. A current area of research is whether high serum homocysteine itself is a problem, or merely an indicator of extant problems.

Although homocysteine can be converted back to methionine, there is no indication that dietary homocysteine contributes any homocysteine nutritionally to humans.

1 Elevated homocysteine

Elevations of homocysteine occur in the rare hereditary disease homocystinuria and in methyl-tetrahydrofolate-reductase deficiency. The latter is quite common and usually goes unnoticed, although there are reports that thrombosis and cardiovascular disease occurs more often in people with elevated homocysteine.

2 Further Information

• Methionine and Homocysteine
• Structure, Properties, and metabolism of Homocysteine