Abstract

QUINTANA, Irene  and  GENOUD, Valeria. Implicancias fisiopatológicas de la hiperhomocisteinemia. Acta bioquím. clín. latinoam. [online]. 2023, vol.57, n.1, pp.35-47. ISSN 0325-2957.

Through numerous large-scale clinical studies, different diseases and/or conditions associated with elevated plasma homocysteine concentrations (hyperhomocysteinemia) have been described; the most evaluated have been cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, neural tube defects, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, Parkinson’s disease, cognitive development disorders and those related to advanced age, autism spectrum disorders and macular degeneration, among others. Based on the results obtained, hyperhomocysteinemia was proposed as a risk factor for vascular disease. Considering that the associations mentioned above do not necessarily imply causality, therapeutic intervention studies (supplementation with folic acid and/or group B vitamins) have been implemented with the aim of determining whether the decrease in homocysteine levels reduces the risk proposed. At present, there is still no conclusive answer to the question of whether hyperhomocysteinemia is a causal risk factor for a certain pathology or if it is only a marker of another factor associated with that disease. However, there is strong evidence to suggest that lowering plasma homocysteine levels to values below 10 μmol/L would be beneficial to human health.

Keywords : Risk factor; Cutoff values; Hyperhomocysteinemia; Biomarker.

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