Vitamin B12
HYPERHOMOCYSTEINEMIA INDEPENDENT RISK FACTOR FOR BRAIN INFARCTION – (01-05-04)
Hyperhomocysteinemia as independent risk factor for silent brain infarction
I recently had a patient who had asked her primary care doctor to run a homocysteine level based on some stuff she had been reading in layman’s journals and her family history. Her doctor refused. I have routinely been running homocysteine and CRP levels on patients for quite awhile now. To say that elevated homocysteine (whether by itself or indirectly as a marker for altered folate/B12 status) has an impact on our health would be an incredible understatement. I am going to make a pretty strong statement here…any clinician who refuses to run a homocysteine level when a patient not only has a family history but REQUESTS the test should no longer be practicing. Being a physician and having patient’s health in your hands requires certain committments–one of those would be to crack a medical journal at least once a month.
Neurology — Abstracts: Kim et al. 61 (11): 1595 –
