Folate fortification: enough already?

Folate fortification: enough already?1,2

The Food and Drug Administration mandated the folate fortification of grain products in the United States by January 1998. The primary driving force behind this policy was the recognition that periconceptional folate supplementation in addition to normal dietary folate intake significantly reduced the incidence of neural tube defects (NTDs), one of the most common birth defects (1, 2). Food for...

Happiness: enough already.

The plural of anecdote is not data, as scientists will tell you, but consider these snapshots of the emerging happiness debate anyway: Lately, Jerome Wakefield's students have been coming up to him after they break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, and not because they want him to recommend a therapist. Wakefield, a professor at New York University, coauthored the 2007 book "The Loss of Sadnes...

Vitamin D: enough already?

Haematological implications of folate food fortification.

Reports from some Western countries indicate that mandatory folate food fortification (FFF) has substantially reduced the prevalence of folate deficiency, leading to calls for folate testing following FFF to be limited to specific indications such as macrocytic anaemia. This is premature for low-income countries, where folate deficiency is predominantly the result of poor intake coupled with th...

Folate during reproduction: the Canadian experience with folic acid fortification

Folate has received international attention regarding its role in the risk-reduction of birth defects, specifically neural tube defects (NTDs). In 1998, health officials in Canada, like the United States, mandated the addition of folic acid to white flour and select grain products to increase the folate intake of reproductive-aged women. Subsequent to this initiative there has been an increase ...