Do you have ongoing elevations in your homocysteine levels? Maybe you're wondering what the heck could be causing this high homocysteine level. We are going to look at all the causes of high homocysteine, certain B vitamins and medical conditions that can lead to high homocysteine levels.

In this video, we're going to look at what causes high homocysteine levels. First off, homocysteine is a molecule in your blood that we use to measure the relative abundance or deficiency of things like B12, folate, and B6. It can also be more of a reflection of your protein intake and body's overall inflammation state.
So typically, if you are high in your homocysteine level, you're either consuming excessive protein or you're deficient in one of those three vitamins. And when you have a high homocysteine for a period of time, there's definitely consequences to that, meaning problems that happen in the body.

But before we look at some of the consequences of elevated homocysteine on your body, let's look a little closer at what the causes of high homocysteine levels are. So we already mentioned B12 deficiency and folate deficiency. Both B12 and folate are needed to break down the homocysteine and turn that homocysteine into methionine. If you don't have enough of one or both of those, then you end up with elevated homocysteine levels. Now, sometimes there's genetic problems, even independent of deficiency where your body is not making the conversion. So there's problems with folate metabolism and B12 utilization that can lead to deficiencies independent of what the blood test shows. So your blood test may show you look all good, you're in the normal ranges, but you still have a problem with high homocystine. So that's where you need to understand sometimes when you have genetic mutations, like MTHFR and other genetic alterations may come into play.

Methotrexate and some other medications can also lead to high homocystine. Methotrexate actually interferes with folate metabolism, so it makes sense that methotrexate could potentially raise your homocystine levels. Kidney disease and problems with the kidneys can also lead to elevated homocysteine levels. And this is thought to be related to losing your B12 and folate through your urinary tract.

Lifestyle factors like smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and high protein diets can also lead to elevations in homocystine. Most of those are going to be tied in with folate and B12 deficiency. So the high protein diet is in and of itself going to contain methionine, so it can raise your homocysteine levels because methionine is then turned back into homocystine, and then it has to be turned back into methionine. So if you're consuming a lot of methionine-rich foods, which are animal protein, you may end up with higher homocystine levels. Smoking has also been reported to cause elevated levels of homocystine and of course alcohol consumption depletes B vitamins like B12 and folate. And so that can also lead to high homocysteine levels.

Also, homocystine levels tend to increase with age and is also more common in men than women. The exact link there between age and male versus female is not fully understood. Also should note that a deficiency in B6 can also lead to high homocysteine.

And when you're measuring your homocysteine levels, you want to be in a fasting state to look at B12 and folate deficiency. If it's elevated when you're in a fasting state, that means you're probably deficient in one or both of those. And if it's elevated when when you're in a fed state, that could be more of an indication of B6 deficiency. When we say elevation here, I usually use the marker of anything above nine would be considered elevated, but depending on how high it is, will depend on the level of intervention and also what kind of symptoms you have. As it gets into the double digits, like 12 and 15, 15 is actually considered hyperhomocysteinemia and that's when we see, when we're serious problems from high homocysteine levels.

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