Homocysteine and Brain Atrophy

Homocysteine is a powerful risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Many of you have had it checked in your screening blood test for that reason, and because it is a nutritional marker for the vital process called methylation. Not surprisingly, we now have evidence that even smaller elevations of homocysteine are associated with neurodegeneration bad enough to cause brain shrinkage. Low stomach acid, estrogen supplementation and birth control pills are common causes of elevated homocysteine.