Folic Acid

It's been seven years since federal health officials announced that folic acid was so effective at preventing a certain type of birth defect that all women of childbearing age should take it.Last year, the government even mandated that cereal and grain products be fortified with folic acid -- a form of vitamin B -- to prevent neural tube defects, which involve the spinal cord. Now, however, public health leaders are facing the unsettling realization that none of their efforts have worked to prevent this serious type of birth defect.

Q. I was so glad to read your recommendation that a bed-wetter avoid caffeine. I had a serious problem with bed-wetting into my early 20s, which ended completely and immediately after I gave up caffeine!While I have never really researched the subject, I have never seen caffeine mentioned in other columns I have read on this topic. I am certain that avoiding caffeine can prevent a great deal of misery for many bed-wetters and only hope this receives more publicity.A. Thanks for your compelling story.

Did you ever eat a whole pint of strawberries all by yourself? Cathy did, and it saved the day.She called me at work to say she was starving and wanted to indulge in some diet-breaking treat. I suggested, instead, that she walk to the store and stop at the produce department instead of the cookie aisle.It worked. Succulent strawberries were too tempting to pass up. And eating them all was a complete indulgence instead of a diet deprivation. Best of all, she ended the day feeling virtuous instead of guilty, and that helped keep her diet on track.

WASHINGTON -- Men who are infected with the virus that causes AIDS appear to progress to the full-blown disease much more quickly if they are deficient in vitamin B12, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University said yesterday.Scientists said a study of 310 gay and bisexual men who were infected with human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, found that those with adequate blood levels of B12 remained free of the disease for about eight years, compared with four years for those deficient in the nutrient.

I've read that a vitamin called folic acid may protect people from heart disease. My parents both have heart problems, so I am being very careful with my diet. I have cut out fat from meat, milk, butter, cheese and eggs. I don't even eat margarine. Can you tell me how much folic acid I should take?Research has focused on people's diets. Those who consumed the most folic acid in foods such as spinach, split peas, lentils, broccoli or peanuts were less likely to suffer heart attacks.Until a study is done with folic acid supplements, we cannot say if they will be as good.

Robins may be the first sign of spring for some folks, but fresh asparagus does it for me. That tender, sweet, pride of the lily family starts arriving from California as early as February, but Eastern asparagus is available from May through July. That means you'll probably find asparagus at its peak in your supermarket right now.Although asparagus has a pricey reputation, a little takes you a long way down the road to better nutrition. Just four medium spears count as one vegetable serving in your total of five fruits and vegetables a day. And remember, more than 100 research studies have shown that five-a-day people have lower risks for stroke, heart disease and both lung and colon cancer than people who eat fewer servings.

Ask most people what causes heart disease and they will point to cholesterol. For the last 30 years we have been told about the dangers of eggs, beef, butter and cream. Yet according to one of the country's leading experts on heart disease, Dr. Meir Stampfer of Harvard, most patients who suffer heart attacks have normal cholesterol levels.For decades, scientists have been tracking another substance in the blood as a potential culprit in heart disease. Few people have ever heard about homocysteine, but the more it is studied, the more dangerous it looks.

Q: Is it true that taking folic acid and other B vitamins may protect me from having a heart attack?A: Possibly.About 30 years ago, doctors recognized that people with a rare genetic disorder called homocystinuria frequently died at a young age of a heart attack or stroke.Homocystinuria is due to a metabolic defect that leads to extremely high blood levels of the amino acid homocysteine.Although the mechanism is not clear, markedly increased levels of homocysteine are associated with premature arteriosclerosis and blood clot formation, which together lead to narrowing and even complete blockage of arteries supplying the heart, brain and other organs.

Nutrition news '95 brought solid, usable information. The good news gleaned from this year's research sets the stage for some doable resolutions for next year. Here's what we learned.* Pregnancy and childbirth: Vitamin news for pregnant women tied good nutrition to birth-defects prevention. A March of Dimes study showed only 15 percent of childbearing-age women realize their need for folic acid, a B-vitamin shown to reduce neural-tube birth defects. Spina bifida and anencephaly occur within the first 28 days, before a woman knows she's pregnant, so good nutrition is essential before pregnancy begins.

No truce has been declared. No victories claimed. But the vitamin wars are virtually over.A few years ago Congress was deluged with letters from people who feared the Food and Drug Administration was going to restrict access to supplements. Visions of commando squads bursting in on stores selling vitamins had health food entrepreneurs up in arms.On one side nutritional nihilists maintained that supplements were silly, a waste of money leading to expensive urine. Their battle cry was straightforward: "Eat a well-balanced diet!"

Study: Ginger capsules ease chemotherapy nausea Ginger, long used as a folk remedy for soothing stomach aches, helped tame one of the most dreaded side effects of cancer treatment - nausea from chemotherapy, the first large study to test the herb for this has found. People who started taking ginger capsules several days before a chemo infusion had fewer and less-severe bouts of nausea afterward than others who were given dummy capsules, the federally funded study found. "We were slightly beside ourselves" to see how much it helped, said study leader Julie Ryan of the University of Rochester in New York.

It was all about the babies. A decade ago, when the U.S. required flour, bread and pasta to be fortified with folic acid, health experts believed it would help prevent devastating birth defects such as spina bifida. There's no question that it worked. As many as 1,000 newborns a year in the United States - and many more elsewhere - have been spared so-called neural tube defects because their mothers got a crucial infusion of folic acid before they even knew they were pregnant. But now some scientists are asking whether there have been unforeseen trade-offs for the population as a whole - including thousands of additional colon cancer cases each year, a somewhat smaller bump-up in prostate cancer, and an increase in cognitive impairment among the elderly.

Adding folic acid to flours, pastas and rice has reduced the rate of spina bifida and anencephaly in the United States, sparing 1,000 babies each year from these devastating birth defects. But a recent study suggests those health gains may have come at a cost: an extra 15,000 cases of colon cancer annually. The report, from Tufts University, is the latest to raise a cautionary note about a public-health policy that has been largely viewed as a success. "Have we done more harm than benefit?"

It's known to prevent birth defects, and the latest studies show it helps retain memory and hearing. But despite a decade-long public health campaign, women still don't get enough of the vitamin folate. A type of B vitamin, folate is found naturally in beans, leafy vegetables, some meats and orange juice. During the past few weeks, two scientific studies and a federal report have focused interest on what steps may be needed to boost consumption. "It's a hot topic in the medical literature right now," said Dr. Joseph Mulinare, a pediatrician and epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Every year, about 450 children are born with serious birth defects in Maryland, and that number is rising. A proposal approved by the House of Delegates last week could help reduce these instances by requiring the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to provide low-income women with free multivitamins and mineral dietary supplements that contain folic acid, a B vitamin that significantly reduces birth defects. The legislation is good public policy that could also save the state millions in subsidized health care costs.

How dangerous is it to drink wine if you are at risk of breast cancer? My mother died of breast cancer, so I know I am at higher-than-average risk. My husband and I drink a glass of wine with dinner most nights, but I rarely have more than one. Women who drink three glasses of wine daily increase their risk of breast cancer by more than 40 percent (British Journal of Cancer, Nov. 18, 2002). Women who drink alcohol and get little folic acid in their diet (200 micrograms or less) may double their chance of developing this disease.

Neural tube defects in babies have decreased significantly since the federal government mandated that folic acid be added to enriched grains, a new study shows, but critics say preventable cases still occur because the fortification level is too low. Folic acid deficiency is considered the major cause of neural tube defects, including spina bifida, an open spine that often leads to paralysis and other complications; and anencephaly, a condition in...

A gene that regulates blood vessel health in the brain may not be doing its job in people with Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study. Meanwhile, an unrelated study has found that folic acid supplements may significantly reduce the risk of Alzheimer's. It may do that by lowering homocysteine, an amino acid that at high levels is associated with cardiovascular problems. "There are many signs pointing to the vascular system in Alzheimer's," said Dr. Berislav Zlokovic, a professor of neurosurgery and neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center and author of the gene finding in Nature Medicine, a scientific journal.

What if mental decline did not have to be a natural consequence of aging? What if part of the secret to staying sharp lay in the foods we eat? Emerging evidence suggests that getting enough of certain nutrients - namely iron, zinc and B vitamins - may help stave off the cognitive decline seen with aging, possibly even Alzheimer's and dementia. "We're learning that if you feed your brain the right nutrients, it will work harder for you throughout life," said Dayle Hayes, dietitian, author and nutrition therapist in Billings, Mont.

For the past five years, folic acid has been added to cereal and grain products in the United States in an effort to reduce neural tube birth defects, deformities in which the spinal cord is exposed in a developing fetus. Since then, the fortification has been credited with reducing these defects by 20 percent. But the addition may be causing an unintended problem for people at the other end of the age spectrum. The extra folic acid may be masking vitamin B-12 deficiency in people 60 and older, warns one of the nation's leading researchers on the B vitamins.