Diet and fetal neural tube defects.

Mediterranean diet, folic acid, and neural tube defects

The Mediterranean diet has been for a very long time the basis of food habits all over the countries of the Mediterranean basin, originally founded on rural models and low consumption of meat products and high-fat/high-processed foods. However, in the modern era, the traditional Mediterranean diet pattern is now progressively eroding due to the widespread dissemination of the Western-type econo...

Neural tube defects

lower limbs and other major organ malformations.4 Complex dysraphic states due to aberrant integration of the notochord include split cord malformation (SCM) or diastematomyelia: a congenital spinal anomaly in which there is longitudinal splitting of the spinal cord.5,6 Causes of NTDs are multifactorial and defects in several different genes can underlie the genetic basis of this disease.1 Howe...

Neural-tube defects.

Neural tube defects.

The purpose of this article is to describe the etiology of neural tube defects (NTDs) and the role of folic acid in their prevention. NTDs are all too common and devastating outcomes of many pregnancies. The brain and spinal cord malformations that develop during gestation in the NTD-affected pregnancies are expressed through various anomalies. Estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and P...

Clomiphene and neural tube defects.

THE aetiology of anencephaly and/or spina bifida (neural tube defects) is still obscure. Most investigators are now agreed on a multifactorial causation with an important genetic factor and a substantial environmental component. The genetic factor is probably polygenic, but the mechanism by which it acts remains unknown. Recently, drugs that stimulate ovulation, particularly clomiphene, have be...