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Original Research Communications |
| ABSTRACT |
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Objective: The aim of this study was to provide a reference range for tHcy and to explore the relation between tHcy and nutritional indexes in a Belgian pediatric population.
Design: tHcy, folate, and vitamin B-12 were measured in 647 healthy children (353 girls and 294 boys) aged 519 y.
Results: The tHcy distribution was, as in adults, skewed to the right [geometric mean (-1 SD, +1 SD): 7.41 µmol/L (5.51, 9.96)]. Concentrations were lowest in younger children and increased with age. After the tHcy distribution was examined according to age, 3 age ranges were distinguished: 59 y [6.21 µmol/L (5.14, 7.50)], 1014 y [7.09 µmol/L (5.69, 8.84)], and 1519 y [8.84 µmol/L (6.36, 12.29)]. We observed no significant differences in tHcy values between girls and boys in children aged <15 y; in postpubertal children, however, concentrations were higher in boys than in girls. In the 3 age groups, folate was inversely correlated with tHcy; the negative relation between tHcy and vitamin B-12 was less strong. Familial cardiovascular disease was more frequent in children who had hyperhomocysteinemia.
Conclusions: These observations suggest that in children, as in adults, genetic, nutritional, and endocrine factors are determinants of the metabolism of homocysteine. The significance of tHcy values in childhood and young adulthood in terms of predicting cardiovascular risk in adulthood should be investigated.
Key Words: Homocysteine children cardiovascular diseases vitamin B-12 folate Belgium
| INTRODUCTION |
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50% of patients have thromboembolic events before the age of 30 y (1). Observations in patients with homocystinuria led McCully (2) to suggest that homocysteine may be involved in the pathogenesis of arteriosclerosis. Clinical and epidemiologic studies showed a relation between total plasma homocysteine (tHcy) concentrations and coronary artery disease as well as peripheral artery disease, stroke, and venous thromboembolism (39). Because the prevalence of hyperhomocysteinemia ranges from 20% to 40% in different populations with coronary artery disease, the therapeutic control of elevated homocysteine concentrations may be important in the prevention of premature vascular disease. It is not known now whether hyperhomocysteinemia is already present during infancy and whether it represents the same risk then as in adulthood.
Plasma homocysteine concentrations are controlled by an interplay of genetic and nutritional factors. A C-to-T substitution at nucleotide 677 in the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase gene is associated with reduced activity and increased thermolability of this enzyme. Persons homozygous for this mutation (510% of whites) often have mildly elevated tHcy values and low plasma folate status (10). On the other hand, cofactors (folic acid and vitamins B-6 and B-12) required for homocysteine metabolism may be important determinants of circulating tHcy concentrations. Subclinical deficiencies of these cofactors have been shown to result in hyperhomocysteinemia (1113).
Age- and sex-specific reference intervals for tHcy concentrations in adults have been published but data for children and adolescents are lacking (14). Tonstad et al (15) reported homocysteine concentrations in Norwegian children aged 812 y, a Spanish study reported homocysteine concentrations in 195 children aged 2 mo to 18 y (16), and Reddy (17) published reference values for tHcy in children from the New Orleans area. No data are available for other geographic areas. Our purpose was to establish the distribution of tHcy in a healthy population of school-age children and to determine the relations between tHcy and folate and vitamin B-12.
| SUBJECTS AND METHODS |
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Data on birth date, personal history (eg, history of chronic disease), familial cardiovascular disease (coronary artery disease, stroke, or peripheral vascular disease in at least one family member, including parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts), and medication use (including oral contraceptives and vitamin supplements) were collected through use of a self-administered questionnaire. Weight and height were measured in 59% of children. Body mass index was calculated as weight (in kg)/height2 (in m). Children with a severe illness (renal, heart, respiratory, endocrine, or neurologic disease) or requiring chronic treatment were not included in the study.
Blood sampling
Blood samples for the measurement of tHcy, folate, and vitamin B-12 in serum were taken after subjects had fasted overnight. Five of 647 samples were excluded from analysis because of hemolysis. Blood samples for the measurement of tHcy were collected in tubes containing EDTA. The tubes were immediately centrifuged (for 5 min at room temperature at 13000 x g) and the plasma fraction was stored at -80°C until tHcy measurement, which was performed within 5 mo.
Biochemical measurements
Plasma tHcy, which includes the sum of free and protein-bound homocysteine released by borohydride treatment, was measured by reversed-phase HPLC with fluorescence detection after precolumn derivatization (14). The precision of the assay was
5%. Vitamin B-12 and folate were measured by radioimmunoassay with a commercial kit (Becton Dickinson ICN, New York).
Statistics
Log10 transformation of tHcy was used in all analyses and parametric tests were applied. Distributions of tHcy are presented as histogram or box plots. Geometric means were calculated (inverse of the logarithmic mean) and are presented together with the interval obtained from the inverse of the logarithmic mean ± 1 SD. Ninety-fifth percentiles were derived by taking the inverse of the 95th percentile of the normal distribution with the mean and SD of the log10 distribution of tHcy as parameters.
After statistically analyzing the tHcy distribution according to age (by year), we established 3 age groups for whom tHcy concentrations were most significantly different: 59, 1014, and 1519 y. The number of subjects in each age group is presented in Table 1
. The sex distribution according to age is also presented.
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| RESULTS |
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50% of concentrations observed in adults.
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We observed a negative correlation between tHcy and folate concentrations. The correlation was present in all 3 age groups but was most striking in the youngest and oldest (59 y and 1519 y). The correlation between tHcy and vitamin B-12 concentrations was also negative, but weaker than the correlation between tHcy and folate (Table 4
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Forty girls (27%) in the 1519-y-old age group took oral contraceptives. The mean tHcy concentrations of girls taking an oral contraceptive [8.51 µmol/L (6.86, 10.84)] and of other girls of the same age [8.26 µmol/L (6.29, 11.02)] were not significantly different.
Cardiovascular disease in the family was reported more frequently when the child had a tHcy concentration above the 95th percentile. Among children with a tHcy concentration above the 95th percentile, 2/6 (33.3%) in the 59-y-old age group, 3/12 (25%) in the 1014-y-old age group, and 4/12 (33.3%) in the 1519-y-old age group reported cardiovascular disease in the family. The corresponding numbers in the whole study group were 6/178 (3.4%) in the 59-y-old age group, 13/229 (5.6%) in the 1014-y-old age group, and 19/235 (8.1%) in the 1519-y-old age group.
| DISCUSSION |
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Three studies of tHcy measurement in children have been published. In Norway, Tonstad et al (15) studied the relation of tHcy, lipid, and apolipoprotein B concentrations in children to premature cardiovascular disease in family members. In children aged 812 y, the mean tHcy concentration was 5.3 µmol/L, which is lower than that measured in our study. In the second study, Vilaseca et al (16) measured tHcy concentrations in 195 Spanish children and adolescents aged 2 mo to 18 y. After statistically analyzing all age groups, the investigators established 3 age groups for whom tHcy concentrations were most significantly different. These age groups were nearly the same as ours: 2 mo to 10 y, 1115 y, and 1618 y. In this study, tHcy also increased significantly with age. The median tHcy concentration in the oldest age group was significantly different from that in the other 2 age groups, but there were no significant differences between boys and girls. The sample size in this study may have been too small to detect a significant difference between the sexes. In the third study, Reddy (17) measured tHcy values in children in 4 age groups (15 boys and 15 girls in each group) from the New Orleans area. They observed no significant trends either between the age groups or between the sexes. Although preanalytic conditions (whether the subjects had fasted before blood samples were collected and the time between blood sampling and centrifugation) may have contributed to the differences in tHcy values between these 3 studies and ours, the differences may also be explained by the nutritional and genetic environment of the groups in the 4 geographic areas in which the studies were carried out.
We measured 2 of the cofactors involved in tHcy metabolism, folate and vitamin B-12. The younger children had the highest concentrations of folate and vitamin B-12 and vitamin concentrations were progressively lower in each age group. Vitamin B-12 and folate concentrations correlated well with nutritional intake (18). Thus, it seems that dietary intakes of folate and vitamin B-12 were adequate in the younger children but not in the older children. Reduced nutritional intakes in adolescents may explain the decreases in serum concentrations of these vitamins. For example, McNulty et al (19) reported that boys and girls aged 1215 y have low folate intakes compared with the estimated average requirement.
In studies of adult populations, negative correlations between tHcy and folate and between tHcy and vitamin B-12 have been shown (11). In our sample, we observed the expected inverse relations with folate and vitamin B-12. Nevertheless, the influence of vitamin B-12 on tHcy was less marked than the influence of folate. However, the correlation of tHcy with the vitamin concentrations (maximum correlation of -0.42 for folate in the 59-y-old age group) did not sufficiently explain the higher tHcy concentrations observed with age. Sulfur amino acid intakes may play a role in the higher tHcy concentrations with age; in this study, however, we did not study protein intakes in the different age groups.
In our study, the difference in tHcy concentrations between the sexes appeared in children aged
15 y; in these postpubertal children, tHcy concentrations were higher in boys than in girls. The effect of puberty on tHcy concentrations may be the result of increased muscle mass, sex hormones, or both. The effect of muscle mass may be related to the large amount of homocysteine formed in conjunction with creatine-creatinine synthesis. In line with this theory, a positive correlation between tHcy and serum creatinine was reported in adults and was related to the sex difference in tHcy concentrations in adults (20). Although we did not measure creatinine in the present study, we did analyze the relation between tHcy and body mass index and found no correlation. Hormonal effects on tHcy have also been suggested in several studies in adults. For example, tHcy concentrations appear to be related to estrogen status. Premenopausal women have lower tHcy concentrations than do postmenopausal women or men. In addition, plasma tHcy was been reported to decrease during pregnancy, in postmenopausal women taking hormone-replacement therapy, and during the high-hormone phase in women taking oral contraceptives (2123). In rats, Kim et al (24) showed a significant lowering effect of steroid hormones (cortisol and estradiol) on homocysteine concentrations.
Elevated tHcy concentrations have been observed in the offspring of hyperhomocysteinemic patients with premature cardiovascular diseases (25). In line with this observation, we observed a history of cardiovascular disease more frequently in families of children with a tHcy concentration above the 95th percentile than in families of children with a concentration below the 95th percentile. We did not measure tHcy concentrations in the parents, however.
In conclusion, we observed that tHcy concentrations were lowest in younger children and increased with age. We observed no significant differences in tHcy concentrations between girls and boys in children aged <15 y; in postpubertal children, however, concentrations were higher in boys than in girls. Our observations suggest that in children, as in adults, genetic, nutritional, and endocrine factors play a role in the metabolism of homocysteine. Whether hyperhomocysteinemia in childhood is predictive of future cardiovascular disease cannot be established from a retrospective study. Prospective studies should be conducted to explore the significance of mild hyperhomocysteinemia in childhood and its implication in terms of prevention.
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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| FOOTNOTES |
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2 Supported by the Danone Institute and the Foundation for Cardiac Surgery.
3 Address reprint requests to C De Laet, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Laboratory of Pediatrics, University Children's Hospital Queen Fabiola, Avenue JJ Crocq 15, B-1020 Bruxelles, Belgium. E-mail: pbourdou{at}resulb.ulb.ac.be.
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