Objective: To assess the relevance of the decreasing of serum folic acid to ischemic stroke. Subject and method: A Case-control study included 94 patients with ischemic stroke (study group) and 100 non-stroke patients (control group). Result: The average age of the study group was 62.88 +/- 9.78
The ratio of male /female was 1.51. The mean serum folate level of the study group was 7.71 +/- 4.41nmol/l, statically significant lower than that of the control group (12.72 +/- 6.02nmol/l), p0.000001. The mean folate level in male patients was 6.90 +/- 3.88nmol/l and in female patients was 9.01 +/- 4.92nmol/l, the difference was statistically significant with p0.05. There was 70.2 percent of patients in the study group having decreased serum folate level, higher than that in the control group (30 percent), p0.00001. The Odds ratio of the decreasing of serum folate concentration dependent homocysteine was 5.5 (95 percent CI: 97 - 10.17, P 0.00001. The rate of the decreasing of folale levels was 57.4 percent in stroke patients regardless of the levels of homocysteine, OR