Normal Range of Total Plasma Homocysteine Concentrations in Southern Iran

Golbahar, J.; Bararpour, H.

Normal Range of Total Plasma Homocysteine Concentrations in Southern Iran

Document Type : Brief Report(s)

Authors

J. Golbahar

H. Bararpour

Department of Biochemistry Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

Abstract

The distribution of total plasma homocysteine concentrations in relation to the sex and age is described, in a population of Shiraz, South West of Iran and compared to those reported in other populations. Two hundred and one healthy males and 201 healthy females aged >15 y were randomly selected. Total Plasma homocysteine concentrations were measured using high performance liquid chromatography. The mean plasma homocysteine level was significantly higher in men (geometric mean 7.3µmol/L) than in women (geometric mean 6.3µmol/L, p<0.001). The geometric meanlevels for age ranges 15-25, 26-36, 37-47, 48-58, 59-69 and 70-80 years,were 5.9, 5.4, 5.2, 6.7, 7.3 and 7.6 µmol/L in women and 7.5, 8.7, 5.9, 5.9, 7.2 and 9.1 µmol/L in men respectively. The first data on homocysteine distribution ina representative sample from South West of Iran indicate that the ethnic differences have an important impact on homocysteine metabolism.