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Objective: Cognitive dysfunction is in a relationship with group of vitamin B and folate deficiency. Metabolism of myelin, membrane phospholipids and neurotransmitters defects could be seen in vitamin B and folate deficiency. So cognitive dysfunctions are common in some deficiencies especially the patients diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations between folate and vitamin B12 levels and psychiatric disorders.
Method: Vitamin B12 and folic acid levels of psychiatry and neurology patients were measured and recorded during one year. First-last name, age-sex, first B12 level measured within a year, values of folic acid and homocysteine were introduced to database of SPSS 11.0. T-test was used to compare the psychiatry and neurology groups, whereas Pearson correlation test was used to correlate the variables of age and vitamin B12, folic acid, homocysteine.
Results: In all group, vitamin B12 is positively correlated with folic acid. Homocysteine is negatively correlated with both B12 and folic acid. There are no differences between averages of vitamin B12 and homocysteine for psychiatry and neurology patients. However, folic acid levels for the psychiatry patients are lower than that of the neurology patients (p=0.009).
Conclusion: B12 values obtained from a large patient population in one-year period revealed that it is possible that vitamin B12 values shift to the left, whereas positive correlation with age could be associated with nutritional factors in young patients. In addition, this finding should be investigated in the normal population. B12 and folic acid metabolism damage in males than females is consistent with the literature. Folic acid levels in psychiatric patients that have been found to be lower than that of neurological patients might be related to the patho-physiology of psychiatric disorders. However, further evaluation based on diagnosis in psychiatric disorders is needed. Homocysteine levels in patients with low vitamin B12 are important for patient follow-up. Also B12 and folic acid supplementation in psychiatric patients may be a safe method of augmenting.