Folate and Human Development

Folate and human reproduction.

The influence of folate nutritional status on various pregnancy outcomes has long been recognized. Studies conducted in the 1950s and 1960s led to the recognition of prenatal folic acid supplementation as a means to prevent pregnancy-induced megaloblastic anemia. In the 1990s, the utility of periconceptional folic acid supplementation and folic acid food fortification emerged when they were pro...

Human, Environment and Sustainable Development

Human Folate Bioavailability

The vitamin folate is recognized as beneficial health-wise in the prevention of neural tube defects, anemia, cardiovascular diseases, poor cognitive performance, and some forms of cancer. However, suboptimal dietary folate intake has been reported in a number of countries. Several national health authorities have therefore introduced mandatory food fortification with synthetic folic acid, which...

Folate determination in human milk.

extraction of folates in the absence of a reducing agent, such as ascorbate, is known to be unsuitable for biological samples that contain principaLly reduced tbrms of tblate. When the method by Allfrey ct al. (2) is used for biological samples, the values are generally lower than those obtained by other methods, such as microbiological assay {4). The use of a reducing agent during the extracti...

The folate in human milk1’2

In previous studies of the folate content of human milk, samples were prepared for assay by a method that resulted in a turbid solution that was then assayed by a turbidimetric microbiological method. We have used an improved microbiological assay in which the milks were treated with rennin to precipitate casein and heated in a buffered ascorbate to coagulate lactalbumin and lactoglobulin. Milk...