Patients with OCD had significantly lower levels of ADMA, SDMA, and L-arginine compared with the controls. - GreenMedInfo Summary
Levels of nitric oxide, asymmetric dimethyl arginine, symmetric dimethyl arginine,and L-arginine in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Turk J Med Sci. 2016 ;46(3):775-82. Epub 2016 Apr 19. PMID: 27513255
Enver Demirel Yilmaz
BACKGROUND/AIM: We aimed to investigate and compare to healthy controls the variations in the levels of nitric oxide (NO), asymmetric dimethyl arginine (ADMA), symmetric dimethyl arginine (SDMA), and L-arginine levels in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
MATERIALS AND METHODS: We enrolled 30 patients with OCD and 30 healthy controls in the study consecutively. Diagnostic interviews of all participants were conducted with the Structured Clinical Interview for Axis I Disorders (SCID-I), and sociodemographic data of the participants were recorded. Patients scoring 10 points or more on the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale were enrolled in the study.
RESULTS: The NO levels of patients with OCD were increased compared to the control group, but the increase was not statistically significant (P>0.05). However, patients with OCD had significantly lower levels of ADMA, SDMA, and L-arginine compared with the controls (P<0.001).
CONCLUSION: We found a significant decrease in ADMA, SDMA, and L-arginine as NO inhibitors between the groups, possibly because of an increase in NO. However, the insignificant increase in NO suggests that ADMA, SDMA, and L-arginine play direct and potentially important roles in OCD biology.
