Distribution characteristics and influencing factors of homocyteine in an apparently healthy examined population

BACKGROUND: Homocysteine (Hcy) is considered to be a risk factor for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. Few studies have evaluated the distribution of Hcy on a large-scale health examination. Accordingly, this study aimed to investigate the level and distribution of Hcy in the population with healthy physical examination and the correlation with other biomarkers, and analyzed for cardiovascular and other diseases. METHODS: Measurements of serum Hcy, TC, TG, LDL-c, HDL-c, ALT, ALP, γ-GT, TBIL, GLU, urea, Cr, UA, and related metabolic risk factors were selected for analysis from 8063 medical examination samples collected from February 2017 to April 2020. The relationship between Hcy and other biochemical indicators were evaluated with the multivariate regression model of age, gender, smoking, drinking, body mass index (BMI), systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). RESULTS: Among 8063 cases, the age, BMI, SBP, and DBP of the high-Hcy group were higher than those of the low-Hcy group, the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.001), and the proportion of males, smoking, and drinking were higher than the low-Hcy group, the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.001); Hcy of the abnormal GLU group is higher than the normal GLU group (P = 0.002) and the Hcy of abnormal TG and HDL is higher than that of the normal blood lipid group (P < 0.001); Hcy of people with abnormal UA and Urea was higher than that of people with normal renal function (P < 0.001, P = 0.007). In multivariate analysis, lnHDL-C was negatively correlated with lnHcy (β = − 0.038, SE = 0.016, P = 0.019), lnCr was positively correlated with lnHcy (β = 0.055, SE = 0.016, P < 0.001), lnUA and lnHcy were positive correlated (β = 0.043, SE = 0.019, P = 0.022). CONCLUSION: Hcy is closely related to HDL-c, Cr, and UA, which indicates that Hcy may affect the metabolism of HDL-c and UA, and can also be used as an auxiliary diagnostic index for kidney injury.