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National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

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Your Environment. Your Health.

Publication Detail

Title: Blood harmane (1-methyl-9H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole) concentrations in essential tremor: repeat observation in cases and controls in New York.

Authors: Louis, Elan D; Jiang, Wendy; Gerbin, Marina; Viner, Amanda S; Factor-Litvak, Pam; Zheng, Wei

Published In J Toxicol Environ Health A, (2012)

Abstract: Essential tremor (ET) is a widespread late-life neurological disease. Genetic and environmental factors are likely to play important etiological roles. Harmane (1-methyl-9H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole) is a potent tremor-producing neurotoxin. Previously, elevated blood harmane concentrations were demonstrated in ET cases compared to controls, but these observations have all been cross-sectional, assessing each subject at only one time point. Thus, no one has ever repeat-assayed blood harmane in the same subjects twice. Whether the observed case-control difference persists at a second time point, years later, is unknown. The current goal was to reassess a sample of our ET cases and controls to determine whether blood harmane concentration remained elevated in ET at a second time point. Blood harmane concentrations were quantified by a well-established high-performance liquid chromatography method in 63 ET cases and 70 controls. A mean of approximately 6 yr elapsed between the initial and this subsequent blood harmane determination. The mean log blood harmane concentration was significantly higher in cases than controls (0.30 ± 0.61 g(-10)/ml versus 0.08 ± 0.55 g(-10)/ml), and the median value in cases was double that of controls: 0.22 g(-10)/ml versus 0.11 g(-10)/ml. The log blood harmane concentration was highest in cases with a family history of ET. Blood harmane concentration was elevated in ET cases compared to controls when reassessed at a second time point several years later, indicating what seems to be a stable association between this environmental toxin and ET.

PubMed ID: 22757671 Exiting the NIEHS site

MeSH Terms: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Case-Control Studies; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; Essential Tremor/blood*; Essential Tremor/chemically induced; Essential Tremor/epidemiology; Harmine/analogs & derivatives*; Harmine/blood; Humans; Middle Aged; Neurotoxins/blood*; New York/epidemiology

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