Meta-analysis of plasma homocysteine content and cognitive function in elderly patients with Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia.

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.