Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Homocysteine is an intermediate sulfur amino acid in the metabolic pathways of cysteine production from methionine, which is increasingly involved in various pathological processes (arterial thrombosis, depression, schizophrenia, dementia). We are interested in the course of our work to study its implication on the lipid balance in patients with venous thrombosis.

Materials and methods: This is an observational case-control study, comparing 47 healthy control subjects with 47 patients admitted to the internal medicine department for the management of deep vein thrombosis confirmed by radiological examination. These two groups are matched by age, sex and body mass index. The homocysteine assay was done by an enzymatic method. The determination of total cholesterol and triglycerides was carried out according to an enzymo-colorimetric method. The HDLc assay was performed using an endpoint enzymatic solubilization method.

Results: The mean age of patients and controls was 40.8 ± 10.5 years with extremes of 18 and 59 years. The two groups consisted of 27 men (57.5%) and 20 women (42.5%) with a sex ratio of 1.35. Cholesterolemia did not show a significant difference (P = 0.63) between the group of patients (mean 4.33 ± 10 mmol/l) and controls (4.73 ± 0.9 mmol/l). the triglyceremia did not show a significant difference (P = 0.78) between the group of patients (mean of 1.42 ± 0.76 mmol/l) and controls (mean of 1.26 ± 0.6 mmol/l). HDLc was significantly (P <0.001) lower in patients (mean 1 ± 0.25 mmol/l) compared to controls (mean 1.33 ± 0.3 mmol/l). Homocysteine was significantly (P <0.001) higher in diseased subjects (mean 17.42 ± 5 μmol/l) compared to control subjects (mean 9.41 ± 3.1 μmol/l). Statistical analysis showed that homocysteine correlated positively with LDLc (P = 0.002; r = 0.392) and negatively with HDLc (P = 0.002; r = -0.392).

Conclusion: Homocysteine is a sulfur amino acid involved in many disease processes; this can be partly explained by the effect on lipid metabolism with a decrease in HDLc and an increase in LDLc with their toxic cellular effects.