Plasma homocysteine levels in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes.
OBJECTIVE
Hyperhomocysteinemia has been established as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The objective was to investigate total plasma homocysteine concentrations in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes and a control group.


METHODS
Twenty-seven children with type 1 diabetes and 27 subjects of an age- and sex-matched control group were recruited. Fasting samples were collected for plasma total homocysteine, serum vitamin B12, folate, and creatinine.


RESULTS
Fasting total homocysteine concentrations showed no difference between patients and controls (5.6 +/- 2.9 micromol/L vs 5.7 +/- 2.2 micromol/L; p greater than 0.05). The diabetic patients had significantly higher serum folate than the healthy controls (11.4 +/- 3.3 ng/mL vs 9.4 +/- 4.1 ng/mL; P = 0.02 and higher serum B12 than the control group (282.8 +/- 119 pg/mL vs 228.5 +/- 50.9 pg/mL; P = 0.03). Total plasma homocysteine concentration correlated with age (r = 0.44, P = 0.02), weight (r = 0.56, P = 0.002), body mass index (r = 0.57, P = 0.002), folate (r = -0.48, P = 0.01), and creatinine (r = 0.41, P = 0.03) in diabetic patients. In stepwise multivariate regression model for diabetics, the independent correlates for total plasma homocysteine concentration was folate (P = 0.002).


CONCLUSIONS
We concluded that fasting plasma total homocysteine concentrations were within normal limits in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes who were without any clinical evidence of microvascular and macrovascular complications.
Atabek
Mehmet Emre
ME
Section of Pediatric Endocrinology, Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Selcuk University, Konya, Turkey. meatabek@hotmail.com
Pirgon
Ozgur
O
Karagozoglu
Emrah
E
D000293:Adolescent; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003922:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 / Q000097:blood*; D005260:Female; D006710:Homocysteine / Q000097:blood*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male
D006710:Homocysteine