27,380 Alzheimer's and dementia studies in plain English, each scored out of 100.
Increasing crystallised intelligence and fruit and vegetable consumption and eliminating depression and diabetes are likely to have the biggest impact on reducing the incidence of dementia, outweighing even the effect of removing the principal known genetic risk factor. 2 key findings →
Design: cohort study Participants: 1,433 Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
Classification of evidence This study provides Class II evidence that specific dual-task training improves dual-task performance during walking under complex S3 conditions in geriatric patients with mild to moderate dementia. 3 key findings →
Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Full text may need a subscription
We conclude that there is evidence supporting the hypothesis that physical activity is likely to prevent the development of VaD, and should be highlighted as part of secondary prevention programmes in people at risk for cerebrovascular disease. 4 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis Participants: 1,378 Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
To examine the relationship between smoking and Alzheimer's disease (AD) after controlling for study design, quality, secular trend, and tobacco industry affiliation of the authors, electronic databases were searched; 43 individual studies met the inclusion criteria. 4 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source
Low levels of vitamin D were associated with substantial cognitive decline in the elderly population studied over a 6-year period, which raises important new possibilities for treatment and prevention. 5 key findings →
Participants: 858 Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
Impaired glucose regulation is a defining characteristic of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) pathology and has been linked to increased risk of cognitive impairment and dementia. 4 key findings →
Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
In this population-based case-control study, any frequency of moderate exercise performed in midlife or late life was associated with a reduced odds of having MCI. 5 key findings →
Design: cohort study Participants: 1,324 Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
Systematic review of the literature using the American Academy of Neurology's evidence-based methods. 2 key findings →
Design: systematic review Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
We reported the interim findings of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to examine the effects of a mind body physical exercise (Tai Chi) on cognitive function in Chinese subjects at risk of cognitive decline. 1 key finding →
Design: randomized controlled trial Participants: 171 Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Full text may need a subscription
Follow-up occurred during a mean period of 6.8 +/- 3.4 years, and subjects had a mean of 2.9 +/- 1.6 follow-up visits. 3 key findings →
Participants: 213 Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
Of 230 patients, 211 (92%) died during the study period. 2 key findings →
Participants: 230 Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Full text may need a subscription
Simultaneous consideration of previous knowledge regarding potentially AD-related nutrients and multiple food groups can aid in identifying food combinations that are associated with AD risk. 3 key findings →
Design: cohort study Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
Sixty-six studies met inclusion criteria for the relationship between physical activity and functional independence, and 34 were included with a cognitive function outcome. 4 key findings →
Design: cohort study Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
Cognitive impairment is an independent predictor of mortality in dialysis patients. 3 key findings →
Design: cohort study Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Full text may need a subscription
Recently, it has become clear that head trauma can lead to a progressive neurodegeneration known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy. 1 key finding →
Design: longitudinal study Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
Because of the heterogeneity of populations and interventions, meta-analyses were not possible and results are presented in narrative form. 3 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Full text may need a subscription
Caffeine has well-known short-term stimulating effects on central nervous system, but the long-term impacts on cognition have been less clear. 3 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study Evidence: moderate
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
This study illustrates the need to identify these individuals and to make provisions among social service agencies to monitor their well-being regularly and provide a higher level of support when needs are identified. 3 key findings →
Participants: 141,460 Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
Cognitive impairment, including dementia, is a common but poorly recognized problem among patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), affecting 16-38% of patients. 1 key finding →
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
Stroke remains a primary cause of morbidity throughout the world mainly because of its effect on cognition. 5 key findings →
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
A high adherence to the Mediterranean diet has been associated with slower cognitive decline, with reduced risk of mild cognitive impairment conversion to Alzheimer's disease and with reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease. 4 key findings →
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
The integrity of the vascular system is essential for the efficient functioning of the brain. 1 key finding →
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
There is a large body of evidence to suggest that improving periconceptional folate status reduces the risk of neonatal neural tube defects. 2 key findings →
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Full text may need a subscription
The vascular hypothesis of Alzheimer disease (AD), first proposed by us in 1993, provides substantial evidence that suggests vascular risk factors (VRF) play a critical role in the development of cognitive decline and AD during aging. 1 key finding →
Evidence: high
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Full text may need a subscription
Vegetables, unsaturated fats, and a high MeDi score may be beneficial to cognitive function. 1 key finding →
Evidence: low
Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text
Free full text links and the Full text may need a subscription label come from Unpaywall, Europe PMC and OpenAlex records of free copies, checked 10 Oct 2026. A study with neither is unknown, not paywalled. Show only studies that are free to read
This is alzhub's own score. It is not an official metric, not an impact factor, and no journal, publisher or ranking body endorses it. We built it so that a reader who is not a scientist can tell a landmark trial from a conference abstract without having to already know the difference. Every point comes from one of 20 components, all of them printed on the study itself, so you can disagree with our arithmetic rather than having to trust the total.
Journals are placed in ordered tiers, never given a numeric impact factor — we could not verify current impact factors from a source we control, and an invented one would be worse than none. Tier 1 is the top-tier general journals (NEJM, The Lancet, JAMA, Nature, Science, Nature Medicine); tier 2 is the leading specialty journals; tier 3 is every other peer-reviewed journal. A separate part scores how much the journal's own papers are cited, which tells the tier-3 journals apart.
Two rules we don't bend. First, we never fill in a missing value: if a record does not state a sample size or a design, that component scores zero, and if we simply have no data for a part, such as a citation count, that part is left out and the study is scored on the parts we could check. The study card says which. Second, anything that is not a peer-reviewed article is capped at 16/100 and carries a warning chip — so a conference abstract or a company press release can never outrank a peer-reviewed paper, no matter how good it looks.
We rank a rigorous null result — a good trial showing that something does not work — above an early positive finding. Someone deciding whether to buy a supplement is served by that, and the rigour is already counted by the design and journal components.
The score is computed from the published data alone and is reproducible: the same file always yields the same numbers.
See the whole rubric drawn out → — four charts covering all 27,380 studies: how the scores are spread and where the cap bites, which of the 20 components the library is strong and weak on, which subjects rest on stronger evidence, and what kinds of study each subject is actually built from.
This is a large sample of the Alzheimer's literature, not an exhaustive index of it. It holds 27,380 records, built mostly from automated pulls of Europe PMC (60.6% of the library) and OpenAlex (18.6%), plus smaller pulls from PubMed, Crossref and medRxiv. If a study, a drug, or a finding isn't here, that is not evidence it doesn't exist in the literature — it may simply not have been pulled in yet.
1,032 records (3.8% of the library) are not peer-reviewed — 962 of those are preprints posted before any journal review, and the rest are conference abstracts, regulatory notices and reports. Every study card on this page states its status plainly, and the score above is capped for anything that isn't a peer-reviewed article.
See the full, machine-readable breakdown of this library's coverage →