The homocysteine distribution: (Mis)judging the burden

de Bree, Angelika; Verschuren, W.M.Monique; Blom, Henk J; de Graaf-Hess, Adriana; Trijbels, Frans J.M; Kromhout, Daan

« Previous Next »Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
Volume 54, Issue 5 , Pages 462-469, May 2001

The homocysteine distribution:

(Mis)judging the burden

Angelika de Bree
- National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, P.O. Box 1, 3720 BA, Bilthoven, The Netherlands
- Laboratory of Pediatrics and Neurology, University Hospital “St Radboud” Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Corresponding author. Fax: +31 30 274 4407.
W.M.Monique Verschuren
- National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, P.O. Box 1, 3720 BA, Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Henk J Blom
- Laboratory of Pediatrics and Neurology, University Hospital “St Radboud” Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Adriana de Graaf-Hess
- Laboratory of Pediatrics and Neurology, University Hospital “St Radboud” Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Frans J.M Trijbels
- Laboratory of Pediatrics and Neurology, University Hospital “St Radboud” Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Daan Kromhout
- National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, P.O. Box 1, 3720 BA, Bilthoven, The Netherlands

Received 10 November 1999; received in revised form 3 August 2000; accepted 26 September 2000.

Abstract

The nonfasting plasma total homocysteine (P-tHcy) concentration was measured in a random sample of 3025 Dutch adults aged 20–65 years (main study). The positively skewed distribution had a geometric mean of 13.9 μmol/L in men and 12.6 μmol/L in women. Blood of the main study was not cooled or centrifuged immediately after drawing. A stability study (n = 26) indicated that this could have resulted in a small (0.4 μmol/L) overestimation of the means. A comparative study (n = 88), and a reproduction of these results in an entirely different population (n = 213), showed a systematic difference in P-tHcy concentration of −2.4 μmol/L between our laboratory (Nijmegen, the Netherlands) and that in Bergen, Norway. With the information of the additional studies we provided precise and valid data of the Dutch P-tHcy distribution, from which we conclude the status in the Netherlands is worse than in other European countries. Furthermore, we showed that comparison of P-tHcy data is complicated unless the interlaboratory differences are known. @ 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Homocysteine measurement, Nonfasting, Stability, Variability, Sampling conditions, General population