Homocysteine Vs Cholosterol: A Comparison of Pathogenetic Risk Factors

Abstract

The European healthcare landscape of 2025 confirms and worsens the presence of chronic diseases – Non Communicable Chronic diseases (NCDs) – which continue to be the leading cause of illness, disability, and death in most countries. The data emerging from the latest OECD and WHO Europe reports (Health at a Glance 2025) is unequivocal: chronic conditions are no longer a component of the system, but rather its core. The economic sustainability of care, people's quality of life, and governments' ability to respond to increasingly complex and ongoing needs depend on them. In this article we will describe the main chronic degenerative diseases with a focus on the most important and widespread ones, in order to identify the pathogenic factors responsible for their onset and the risk factors to keep under close observation. We will make a comparison between the two main killers for these pathologies, cholesterol and homocysteine and their excess blood values. We will highlight how, while blood cholesterol has become routinely included in cardiovascular disease screening and in established preventive and therapeutic protocols, blood homocysteine has not yet received the necessary attention, as an important, broad-spectrum independent risk factor, for the control of these diseases. Comparing the two metabolic parameters will highlight the urgency of including homocysteine in prevention protocols not only for cardiovascular diseases, but also for many other chronic diseases.