title: Meta-analysis of plasma homocysteine content and cognitive function in elderly patients with Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the relationship between homocysteine and cognitive function of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and vascular dementia (VD) patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  By Cochrane system evaluation we retrieved relevant publications from MEDLINE, Embase, OVID, controlled clinical trial database of the Cochrane library and others. Two evaluators jointly assessed the research quality of the retrieved publications and carried out meta-analysis on the homogeneous study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  MMSE score in the AD group was lower than that in normal control group (MD = -11.98, 95% CI (-13.30, -10.65)), and the homocysteine content was higher than that in the normal control group (MD = 2.72, 95% CI (1.79, 3.64)), with a statistical difference between the two groups (P < 0.05). The homocysteine content in the AD group was higher than that in the VD group (MD = -4.76, 95% CI (-7.59, -1.93), P < 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  MSE score and homocysteine content can be used as useful indicators to distinguish AD and normal subjects; homocysteine content can be used as an indicator to differentiate AD from VD. Clinically, more randomized controlled trials are needed to test and verify the relationship in cognitive function between homocysteine and AD and VD.
authors: Department of Geriatrics, Sixth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai 200233, China.
authors: Beiyun
authors: B
authors: Wang
authors: Department of Geriatrics, Sixth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai 200233, China.
authors: Yuan
authors: Y
authors: Zhong
authors: Department of Geriatrics, Sixth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai 200233, China.
authors: Hong
authors: H
authors: Yan
authors: Department of Geriatrics, Sixth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai 200233, China.
authors: Liang
authors: L
authors: Cui
keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; cognitive function; elderly people; homocysteine; meta analysis