The homocysteine distribution: (mis)judging the burden.
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 micromol/L in men and 12.6 micromol/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 micromol/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 micromol/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.
de Bree
A
A
National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, Bilthoven, The Netherlands. angelika.de.bree@rivm.nl
Verschuren
W M
WM
Blom
H J
HJ
de Graaf-Hess
A
A
Trijbels
F J
FJ
Kromhout
D
D
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006710:Homocysteine / Q000097:blood*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands / Q000453:epidemiology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013048:Specimen Handling / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016008:Statistical Distributions
D006710:Homocysteine