Relationship between total homocysteine and folate levels in pregnant women and their newborn babies according to maternal serum levels of vitamin B-12

• Autor(a) principal: Guerra-Shinohara, Elvira Maria
• Data de Publicação: 2002
• Outros Autores: Paiva, Adriana de Azevedo, Rondó, Patrícia Helen de Carvalho, Yamasaki, Kátia, Terzi, Carolina A., D'Almeida, Vânia [UNIFESP]
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UNIFESP
• dARK ID: ark:/48912/0013000008db3
• DOI: 10.1016/S1470-0328(02)01307-1
• Texto Completo: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1470-0328(02)01307-1; http://repositorio.unifesp.br/handle/11600/26900

Objective To determine total homocysteine and folate levels in pregnant women according to vitamin B-12 (B-12) levels, and to analyse the impact of maternal B-12 levels on the nutritional status of their newborn babies.Design Cross sectional observational study.Setting Two public hospitals in Jundiai City, São Paulo, Brazil.Sample Sixty-nine pregnant women and their respective newborn babies at the time of delivery.Methods Maternal blood was collected up to 8 hours before delivery. Umbilical cord blood was collected after the expulsion of the placenta. Total homocysteine was measured by high performance liquid chromatography, folate by ion capture methodology and B-12 by enzyme immunoassay.Main outcome measures Relationship between low maternal vitamin B-12 levels and total homocysteine and folate levels in pregnant women and newborn babies.Results There was a significant correlation between maternal and neonatal B-12 levels, but not between maternal B-12 and neonatal red blood cell (RBC) folate. There was a weak correlation between maternal B-12 levels and neonatal serum folate. However, there were significant correlations between maternal and neonatal total homocysteine levels and between neonatal B-12 and neonatal total homocysteine levels. Mean (+/-SD) umbilical cord blood B-12, RBC folate, serum folate and total homocysteine levels were 1.7 +/- 0.8, 1.8 +/- 0.8, 2.2 +/- 0.8 and 0.9 +/- 0.3 times higher than maternal B-12, RBC folate, serum folate and total homocysteine values, respectively.Conclusions These data suggest that pregnant women with low B-12 levels are unable to provide the necessary amount of B-12 to their fetuses. the clinical consequences could be the presence of neurological abnormalities as well as the lack of utilisation of homocysteine for methionine transformation.