The simplest way to lower it is with specific ‘homocysteine modulating’ supplements These include vitamin B6, B12, folate, as well as zinc and Trimethyl Glycine (TMG) for short. (There are other B vitamins, such as B2 and B3(niacin) that also help).
Watch this film ‘Methylation explained’ Methylation QT to understand what methylation is and why these nutrients are so important.
Not everything is shown in this film. There is another pathway, involving B6, which leads to making one of the body’s key antioxidants, glutathione, which you’ll learn about in the ANTIOXIDANT domain. It’s one of those ‘either/or’ pathways, either doing methylation or doing anti-oxidation. Older people have more demands on glutathione so by including glutathione or its cousin NAC in a supplement in helps encourage healthy methylation.
Please read the report on lowering your homocysteine levels: https://foodforthebrain.org/nutrition-for-healthcare-professionals/homocysteine-b-vitamins/
To some extent you don’t ‘need’ to know all this if you just pick a supplement that has them all.
In most cases it means taking one tablet if your Hcy is a bit high (7-9.9), 2 if moderately high (10 to 15) and 3 if very high (above 15).
How long do you need to take them? The answer is as long as it takes to lower your Hcy. We recommend you re-test after one month, if you’ve made lots of homocysteine-lowering changes, including taking the supplements daily, to three months.
You may find that your Hcy has normalised, or come down (e.g. from 14 to 9) to a point where you can reduce to one tablet a day.
Theoretically, if you’ve lowered your Hcy below 7, then you could stop taking any specific homocysteine-lowering supplements. The ‘ideal’ level shown for those with Hcy below 7 is what you’ll find in a good quality multivitamin and mineral.
In reality, some people just don’t absorb B12 well enough to stop supplementation completely. By testing and retesting you’ll find out what works for you.
Many people also report that they become more switched on and less forgetful, when they take these supplements.