B Vitamin Not Living Up to the Hype
For years some optimistic scientists and people who are tediously devoted to high-doses of vitamins of all kinds have touted the miraculous properties of the B Vitamin known as Folic Acid. Crucially important to health (without Folic Acid red blood cells produced in the bone marrow fail to divide properly), many have fervently hoped for a panacea in taking high levels of this water soluble vitamin that the body can not produce on its own.
While the new findings do not eliminate the need for women to take Folic Acid during pregnancy (Folic acid deficiencies cause neural tube defects), the new study does pull the rug out from under Folic Acid's cure-all status. The vitamin recently caved under the intense scrutiny of a meta-analysis--which is when a group of brainiac scientists come together and go over old research with a fine-toothed comb in search of definitive answers.
Why no one had done this up to now is a mystery, but here's what they found after looking at studies that represent a total of 37,485 people taking Folic Acid for 5 years and experiencing their share of medical catastrophes (3,990 major coronary events, 1,528 strokes, 5,068 revascularizations, 3010 cancers and 5,125 deaths).
Does Folic Acid prevent heart disease? No
Does Folic Acid prevent cancer? No (at least not over 5 years)
Does Folic Acid prevent death? No
Does Folic Acid cause any of the above? No
But let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. Folic acid deficiencies are still associated with heart palpitations, anemia and fatigue. The main source of folic acid in the diet is fresh vegetables (and we know how miserably most people are at eating vegetables). So the recommendation to take a multivitamin with folic acid is still wise. This new analysis just tells us that in the case of Folic Acid, more is not better.