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71/100

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 71 out of 100. Drug development

Topic: Drug trials: efficacy and safety

Plain-language summary

We identified 63,347 cases with Alzheimer's disease and 126,694 controls. The adjusted odds ratio (aOR) of Alzheimer's disease risk with lithium use was 1.79 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.34-2.38) in the general population. However, when we restricted the analyses to patients with bipolar disorder to minimize potential confounding by indication, lithium was not associated with Alzheimer's disease risk (aOR = 1.36; 95% CI, 0.89-2.09), and there were no apparent trends of greater risk with increasing duration or dose. These findings do not support an increased or decreased risk of lithium use with Alzheimer's disease when taking into account potential confounding by indication. Further investigations of the effect of lithium with dementia need to consider the influence of confounding by indication.

Cite this study APA, Vancouver, BibTeX · download .bib or .ris

APA 7th

Cheng, C., Zandi, P., Stuart, E., Lin, C.-H., Su, P.-Y., Alexander, G. C., et al. (2017). Association Between Lithium Use and Risk of Alzheimer's Disease. The Journal of clinical psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.4088/jcp.15m10304

Vancouver

Cheng C, Zandi P, Stuart E, Lin C.-H, Su P.-Y, Alexander GC, et al. Association Between Lithium Use and Risk of Alzheimer's Disease. The Journal of clinical psychiatry. 2017. doi:10.4088/jcp.15m10304. PMID: 28002662.

BibTeX

@article{cheng2017-28002662,
  author  = {Cheng, Chin and Zandi, Peter and Stuart, Elizabeth and Lin, Ching-Heng and Su, Pei-Yu and Alexander, G Caleb and Lan, Tsuo-Hung},
  title   = {{Association Between Lithium Use and Risk of Alzheimer's Disease}},
  journal = {The Journal of clinical psychiatry},
  year    = {2017},
  doi     = {10.4088/jcp.15m10304},
  pmid    = {28002662},
  url     = {https://doi.org/10.4088/jcp.15m10304}
}

Built from the record alzhub holds for this paper, not looked up. Volume, issue and page numbers are not held in the record. The record names 7 authors; APA and Vancouver show the first six, BibTeX and the downloads carry all of them. Check the citation against the original before you use it.

How to read this study

Design: this is a case-control study. People with the condition are compared with people without it, looking backward at past exposures. Recall of the past can be uneven between the groups, and the design shows association, not cause.
Size: the record lists 63,347 participants. Ask whether that is enough for the question, and who they were.
Effect: the record reports “aOR = 1.36”. A statistically significant result can still be small in daily life.

What the evidence grade means here

This page is graded moderate. alzhub.org assigns the grade automatically from keywords in the abstract, not from reading the paper. Moderate means the abstract mentions a cohort, case-control or longitudinal design. It can add at most 5 of the 100 points in the study score, and it is a label about design, not a verdict on whether the findings are true.

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Key findings

We identified 63,347 cases with Alzheimer's disease and 126,694 controls.
The adjusted odds ratio (aOR) of Alzheimer's disease risk with lithium use was 1.79 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.34-2.38) in the general population.
However, when we restricted the analyses to patients with bipolar disorder to minimize potential confounding by indication, lithium was not associated with Alzheimer's disease risk (aOR = 1.36; 95% CI, 0.89-2.09), and there were no apparent trends of greater risk with increasing duration or dose.
These findings do not support an increased or decreased risk of lithium use with Alzheimer's disease when taking into account potential confounding by indication.
Further investigations of the effect of lithium with dementia need to consider the influence of confounding by indication.

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Study details

Study designcase-control study
Participants63,347
Effect sizeaOR = 1.36
Evidence strengthModerate

How this study scored 71/100

Published in a peer-reviewed journal, and it is a case-control study. Scored zero for randomized / blinded because the record does not state it. We have no data on journal's citation record, times cited, citations per year, impact for its field and year, cited by studies here, still being cited, senior author's track record, institution's track record, multicenter collaboration and free to read, so those were left out: it earned 40 of the 56 points we could judge it on, which is 71 out of 100.

Component	Points	Why
Journal tier	7 / 10	Tier 3 — peer-reviewed journal (The Journal of clinical psychiatry)
Journal's citation record	— / 4	No journal record from OpenAlex — left out of this score
Study design	6 / 12	A case-control study
Strength of evidence	3 / 5	Rated “moderate” in our summary
Peer-review validation	10 / 10	Peer-reviewed. Published as an article in a named peer-reviewed journal.
How recent	2 / 5	2017 — within 10 year(s) of the newest study here
Sample size	4 / 4	63,347 participants
Effect reported	3 / 3	Effect reported with a statistic (interval, p-value, ratio or similar)
Studied in people	3 / 3	Studied in people (participant count stated)
Randomized / blinded	0 / 2	No randomization or blinding stated — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0)
Times cited	— / 7	No citation count (not found in OpenAlex) — left out of this score
Citations per year	— / 5	No citation count or no year — left out of this score
Impact for its field and year	— / 6	No field-weighted citation impact (OpenAlex has none yet) — left out of this score
Cited by studies here	— / 6	Not yet checked against this library's citation graph — left out of this score
Still being cited	— / 4	No yearly citation counts — left out of this score
Senior author's track record	— / 4	Senior author's record not available — left out of this score
Institution's track record	— / 3	No institution listed in OpenAlex — left out of this score
Multicenter collaboration	— / 3	Institutions not listed — left out of this score
Indexed in PubMed	2 / 2	Indexed in PubMed (PMID 28002662)
Free to read	— / 2	Access not recorded — left out of this score
Points	40 / 56	Scored on 10 of 20 parts. We have no data for the rest, so they are left out: 40 of the 56 points we could judge it on is 71 out of 100.
Total	71 / 100	—

What each of these 20 components measures, and what this score is not →

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