OBJECTIVES To evaluate the effects of folic acid supplementation on isolated oral cleft recurrence and fetal growth. PATIENTS AND METHODS The study included 2,508 women who were at-risk for oral cleft recurrence and randomized into two folic acid supplementation groups: 0.4 and 4 mg per day before pregnancy and throughout the first trimester. The infant outcome data were based on 234 live bir...

Hyperhomocysteinemia, a condition of elevated blood homocysteine (Hcy) levels, is a metabolic disease. It is a common clinical finding in patients with chronic kidney diseases and occurs almost uniformly in patients with end-stage renal disease. Hyperhomocysteinemia is also a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Our recent studies indicate that hyperhomocysteinemia can lead to renal injury b...

Persons in developed countries are getting large amounts of folates in the form of folic acid. Folates are now ingested in three ways: as natural folates from food, as synthetic folic acid added to processed grains, and synthetic vitamin supplements. As a result of the supplementation, the circulating level of unmetabolized folic acid as well as total folates has greatly increased over the past...

Methods: The Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study is a population-based prospective cohort study. A total of 65,668 women with singleton pregnancies resulting in live births in 1999–2009 were included. Folic acid supplementation was self-reported from 26 weeks before pregnancy until week 24 during pregnancy. At gestational week 22, the women completed a food frequency questionnaire, which al...

Spina bifida and anencephaly, the common form of neural tube defects, affect approximately 300 000 newborns each year worldwide. The effectiveness of folic acid supplementation in preventing their occurrence or recurrence has been unambiguous since 1991. In general, the prevalence of these abnormalities has decreased in the past 20 to 30 years because of periconceptional folate supplementation,...

Objective To explore if there is an increased cancer risk associated with folic acid supplements given orally. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled studies of folic acid supplementation in humans reporting cancer incidence and/or cancer mortality. Studies on folic acid fortification of foods were not included. Data sources Cochrane Library, Medline, Embase and Centre of Re...

Maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy can induce central nervous system abnormalities in the fetus, and folic acid supplementation can reverse some of the effects. The objective of the present study was to investigate prenatal alcohol exposure-induced fetal brain proteome alteration and the protective effect of folic acid using proteomic techniques. Alcohol (5.0 g/kg) was given intragas...

T he cause of neural tube defects (NTDs) is multi-factorial. The possibility that folic acid played a role was first reported in 1964. 1 Several clinical trials subsequently showed that the risk of recurrence and first occurrence of these abnormalities was decreased by peri-conceptional folic acid supplementation, 2–5 On the basis of these findings, supplementation of 400 µg folic acid was reco...

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES Folic acid supplementation before pregnancy is known to significantly reduce the risk of having a baby with neural tube defects (NTDs). Therefore, it is important for women to be aware of the effects of folic acid supplementation before pregnancy. The purpose of this study was to investigate the awareness and preconceptional use of folic acid and to assess the current know...