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Home test your way to better health
“You will all be aware of the importance of homocysteine and the link to heart disease. It has been reported in peer review journals that lowering your homocysteine levels can reduce the risk of heart disease by 16%. Now in new research, Jacqueline Young, a leading nutritionist, turns the homocysteine spotlight to people who over-exercise and the findings are another endorsement for optimising your homocysteine levels.” Gill Hart, YorkTest Scientific Director.
The role of elevated levels of homocysteine, a naturally occurring amino acid in the body, is gradually becoming recognized as a significant factor in ageing and for a whole host of diseases including heart disease, stroke, dementia, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and cancer. Various factors have been identified that can lower homocysteine especially the nutrients folic acid, Vitamins B6 and B12 and Trimethlyglycine (TMG) and also physical exercise.
Objectives: To determine the effect of a nutritional supplement containing the above nutrients in therapeutic doses on the homocysteine levels of healthy individuals that engage in exercise, as measured by a pin-prick blood test.
Method: This randomised controlled trial recruited 100 participants from two local leisure centres and from a college of natural medicine. Blood plasma homocysteine levels were measured by means of the YorkTest plasma separator home test kit, at baseline and after 6 weeks of supplementation, and analysed by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) at their laboratory. Participants were randomly assigned to take either a combined nutrient supplement (AOR Homocysteine plus), that has been formulated with the aim of lowering homocysteine, or a vegetable cellulose placebo. Assignment was made according to a random number generator and masking was achieved by means of third party coding of identical active and placebo containers. Exercise levels and food frequency were assessed by means of questionnaires.
Results: Results were analysed for 84 patients at baseline. Descriptive statistics showed that data was normalized and randomisation achieved as there was no significant difference between treatment and control group homocysteine levels at baseline ((F = .277, p> 0.05). Homocysteine was found to be significantly related to age (Pearson r = .282, p< 0.01), dietary folate intake (Pearson r = -.472, p<0.01) and exercise level (One way ANOVA F=10.410, p <0.01) but not gender
(independent t- test F= .002, p >0.05). A paired-t-test of 30 post-intervention scores showed a significant decrease in homocysteine for the treatment group (t= 0.646, p<0.05) but no significant difference for controls (t= 0.646, p>0.050).
Conclusion: The AOR combined nutrient supplement was found to effectively lower homocysteine regardless of level of baseline homocysteine. Many reductions were > 3 µmol/L homocysteine, indicative of a significant reduction in disease risk. Regular, ‘moderate’ levels of exercise seem to yield the lowest homocysteine measures. The Yorktest pin-prick homocysteine test was an effective tool for identifying undetected high levels of homocysteine in healthy members of leisure centres and for evaluating the efficacy of the combined nutrient supplement on homocysteine levels