Hypohomocysteinemia may increases the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease: A nationwide population-based prospective cohort study

Background: Hyperhomocysteinemia has been repeatedly found to increase the risk of dementia. However, the effects of hypohomocysteinemia on the risk of dementia have been barely investigated. If hypohomocysteinemia, like hyperhomocysteinemia, increases the risk of dementia, misuse or overuse of homocysteine-lowing agents such as vitamin supplements may increase the risk of dementia. Aims: To investigate whether hypohomocysteinemia, like hyperhomocysteinemia, could increase the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease (AD) in a large population-based cohort of older adults. Methods: This prospective cohort study followed 2655 randomly sampled, community-dwelling, nondemented individuals aged 60 years or older from 2010 to 2018. We measured baseline serum total homocysteine (tHcy) levels and examined the effect of serum tHcy on the risks of dementia and AD using Cox proportional hazards models. Results: During the follow-up period (mean = 5.4 years, SD = 0.9), dementia and AD developed in 85 and 64 participants, respectively. Not only the participants with high serum tHcy (>10.6 mmol/L) but also those with low serum tHcy (<8.9 mmol/L) were 4-5 times more likely to develop dementia and AD compared to those with serum tHcy levels between 9.0 and 10.5 mmol/L. With the increase in serum tHcy concentration, the use of vitamin supplements decreased, and 41.2% of the participants with low serum tHcy (<8.9 mmol/L) were taking vitamin supplements. Conclusions: Not only hyperhomocysteinemia but also hypohomocysteinemia considerably increased the risk of dementia and AD in older adults. The risk of dementia that results from overuse or misuse of vitamin supplements should be acknowledged and homocysteine-lowering health policies should be tailored to consider dementia risks that are associated with hypohomocysteinemia. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

The study showed that both high and low homocysteine levels significantly increased the risk of dementia and AD in older adults. Misuse of vitamin supplements could lead to an increased risk of dementia.