Vascular Disease and Homocysteine Metabolism

Elsewhere in this issue, Boers and co-workers1 present evidence that among 50 patients with early occlusive peripheral arterial or cerebrovascular disease, far more heterozygotes for deficiency of the enzyme cystathionine synthase were detected than would be expected in a random sample of the general population. This finding lends important support to the emerging hypothesis that there may be an association between premature vascular disease and mild impairments of homocysteine metabolism.Homocysteine is an amino acid formed during the metabolism of methionine. Several genetic diseases of human beings are now known to interfere with the further use of homocysteine, affecting either . . .