Levine Joseph, Stahl Ziva, Sela Ben Ami, Gavendo Slava, Ruderman Vladimir, Belmaker Robert H
Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheva, Israel.
Am J Psychiatry. 2002 Oct;159(10):1790-2. doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.159.10.1790.
Elevated plasma homocysteine has been found to be a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease as well as cerebral vascular disease, suggesting that some risk factors can accelerate or increase the severity of several CNS disease processes. The authors measured plasma homocysteine levels in patients with chronic schizophrenia in their catchment area.
A one-way analysis of covariance with age and sex as covariates was performed on the total plasma homocysteine levels of 193 patients with schizophrenia compared with 762 subjects without the diagnosis of schizophrenia who were evaluated in a screening program for employee health.
The effect of schizophrenia was marked: the mean homocysteine level was 16.3 micro M (SD=11.8) in patients with schizophrenia compared with 10.6 micro M (SD=3.6) in healthy comparison subjects. The difference between groups was almost entirely attributable to the homocysteine levels of young male patients with schizophrenia.
Elevated levels of homocysteine in young male patients with schizophrenia could be related to the pathophysiology of aspects of this illness.
血浆同型半胱氨酸水平升高已被发现是阿尔茨海默病以及脑血管疾病的一个危险因素，这表明某些危险因素可加速或加重几种中枢神经系统疾病进程。作者测量了其辖区内慢性精神分裂症患者的血浆同型半胱氨酸水平。
对193例精神分裂症患者的血浆总同型半胱氨酸水平进行以年龄和性别为协变量的单因素协方差分析，并与在员工健康筛查项目中接受评估的762例未诊断为精神分裂症的受试者进行比较。
精神分裂症的影响显著：精神分裂症患者的平均同型半胱氨酸水平为16.3微摩尔（标准差=11.8），而健康对照受试者为10.6微摩尔（标准差=3.6）。两组之间的差异几乎完全归因于年轻男性精神分裂症患者的同型半胱氨酸水平。
年轻男性精神分裂症患者同型半胱氨酸水平升高可能与该疾病某些方面的病理生理学有关。
