Abstract
Background and objective: In recent years, increasing homocysteine (Hcy) levels have also been considered in neurological disorders that are not vascular in origin. Parkinson's Disease (PD) is one of them. It is not well clarified that the increment of serum Hcy in PD is a primary entity or is secondary to administration of drugs like L-dopa. The aim of this study was to assess the serum Hcy level in patients with PD.
Materials and Methods: In a case-control study, 47 patients with clinically diagnosed PD (the case group) were compared with 47 age and sex-matched healthy people (the control group). Serum Hcy levels were measured by ELISA method and compared between the two groups. Then the serum Hcy levels were evaluated within subgroups with different severity.
Results: Mean age of PD patients was 67.1±9.0 and control group was 66.7±9.3 years. Both of case and control groups included 31 males and 16 females. The mean serum Hcy level was significantly higher in the case group (20.7±10.6 mmol/L vs. 17.0±5.9 mmol/L; p=0.04). There was no significant correlation between the mean serum Hcy level and severity in subgroups of patients with PD (p=0.91). There was not also significant differences between the mean serum Hcy level with neither different drug consumers nor different symptoms of the disease (p>0.05).
Conclusion: This study revealed that the mean serum Hcy level of patients with PD patients is higher than people without PD, but there was no significant difference in serum Hcy level between groups with different severity of PD disease.