Homocysteinemia in psychiatric disorders: association with dementia and depression, but not schizophrenia in female patients

Summary.

Homocysteinemia has been reported to be a risk factor for dementia, depression and also schizophrenia, the latter in a gender-specific manner. We have determined homocysteine in female inpatients suffering from various psychiatric diseases to further investigate a possible association between homocysteinemia and psychiatric disorders. Homocysteine was not elevated in schizophrenic females (mean, 11.6±5.8 µmol/l); in accordance with previous studies, homocysteinemia could be found frequently in dementia of different aetiology (mean, 17.2±6.7 µmol/l), but also to a slighter extent in depressive disorders (mean, 12.9±3.8 µmol/l), especially in elderly subjects. We thus suggest that homocysteinemia, at least in females, is an unspecific risk factor for organic brain disorders, but not endogenous psychoses.