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Departments of Clinical Nutrition, and Food and Nutrition, College of Health Sciences, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL and * Department of Mathematics, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
2To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: vijay_ganji{at}rush.edu.
Folate intake is inversely related to circulating total homocysteine (tHcy) concentrations. Elevated tHcy is a risk factor for vascular diseases. The objectives of this study were to present plasma tHcy distributions and investigate the association between tHcy and sex, age, and race-ethnicity in U.S. children and adolescents (3264 boys and 3197 girls) using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, 1999–2000 and 2001–2002 conducted in the post-folic acid fortification era. Plasma tHcy was higher in boys than in girls (P < 0.0001), and higher in older children (16–18 y old) than in younger children (3–15 y old) (P < 0.0001). The difference in plasma tHcy between boys and girls was greater in the 16- to 18-y-old group than in any other age group studied (P < 0.05). Age-adjusted plasma tHcy concentrations were 
6.8, 10.5, and 8.8% higher in boys than in girls in non-Hispanic White (NHW), non-Hispanic Black (NHB), and Mexican American/Hispanic (MA/H) children, respectively. Sex- and age-adjusted plasma tHcy concentrations (geometric means ± SE) were 5.04 ± 0.05, 5.01 ± 0.06, and 4.99 ± 0.06 µmol/L in the NHW, NHB, and MA/H groups, respectively. Race-ethnicity was not related to plasma tHcy in age-adjusted analysis for boys (P < 0.77) and girls (P < 0.26), and in sex- and age-adjusted analysis (P < 0.38) for all children. The plasma tHcy concentrations begin to rise between ages 8 and 11 y, and the age-related increase is greater in boys than in girls.
KEY WORDS: • children • homocysteine • National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey • United States
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