Efficacy of homocysteine-lowering therapy with folic Acid in stroke prevention: a meta-analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background and purpose

Although a lower serum homocysteine concentration is associated with a reduced risk of stroke in epidemiologic studies, randomized, controlled trials have yielded mixed findings regarding the effect of therapeutic homocysteine lowering on stroke prevention. We performed a meta-analysis of randomized, controlled trials to assess the efficacy of folic acid supplementation in the prevention of stroke.

Methods

Salient trials were identified by formal literature search. Relative risk (RR) with 95% CI was used as a measure of the association between folic acid supplementation and risk of stroke, after pooling data across trials in a fixed-effects model.

Results

The search identified 13 randomized, controlled trials that had enrolled 39 005 participant

SUBMITTER: Lee M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2909661 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature