Relationship between serum vitamin b12, hyperhomocysteinemia in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Author(s): Sadik Ali Mahammad*, Shaik Sarfaraz Nawaz, K. Paul Marx, Imran Ahmed Siddiqu

Abstract

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) represents a wide spectrum of liver damage and the prevalence is increasing worldwide. Hyper homocysteinemia is implicated as a causative factor of endothelial dysfunction, hepatic steatosis and cardio vascular disease (CVD). Since Vitamin B12 deficiency is one of the most important causative factors of hyper homocysteinemia. This study aims to elucidate serum levels of homocysteine and Vitamin B12 in south indian NAFLD patients. Patient diagnosed to have NAFLD by standard clinical, radiological and biochemical investigations formed the study group. Healthy volunteers formed the control group. Fasting blood samples were collected at Star medical diagnostics and were subjected to biochemical analysis. Vitamin B12 and homocysteine were assayed using chemiluminiscence commercial kits. Liver function tests (LFT), lipid profile and HOMA IR were assayed using auto analyzer. Vitamin B 12 deficiency (<223 picograms/ml), was observed in 43% of NAFLD patient and 72% of these Vitamin B12 deficiency patients had hyper homocysteinemia (>17.24 micro moles). Elevated ALT was found to be correlated with 67% of Vitamin B12 and 70% of hyper homocysteinemic NAFLD patients respectively. Our results indicate that hyper homocysteinemia may be one of the factors responsible for hepatic steatosis in NAFLD patients.

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