BBC Medical Science – Mandatory fortification of bread with folic acid would slash the risk of babies being born with a heart problem, experience from Canada shows. Rates of severe congenital heart defects among newborns in Quebec fell significantly after the move to fortify flour and pasta began in 1998.
The British Medical Journal online study lends support to calls for introducing fortification to Europe. …
Folic acid is a synthetic form of folate, a B vitamin found in a wide variety of foods including liver and green leafy vegetables.
Pregnant women and those trying to conceive are already advised to take folic acid supplements to reduce the risk that their baby will have a “neural tube” birth defect like spina bifida. But uptake is not ideal, particularly because some pregnancies are unplanned and can go unnoticed for some weeks. The latest work suggests folic acid also cuts the risk of baby heart defects.
In the seven years after fortification was introduced there was a 6% drop per year in the birth prevalence of severe heart defects. This compares with a 9% drop in neural tube defects.
Writing in the BMJ, lead author Professor Louise Pilote of McGill University in Montreal, said: “Given that severe congenital heart defects require complex surgical interventions in infancy and are associated with high infant mortality rates, even a small reduction in the overall risk will significantly reduce the costs associated with the medical care of these patients and the psychological burden on patients and their families.” (05/17/09)
more…