Folic Acid—Benefits, Risks, and Food Fortification

Session 1: Public health nutrition. Folic acid food fortification: the Irish experience.

Adequate intake of folic acid by women during very early pregnancy can markedly reduce risk of the development of neural-tube defects (NTD). The effectiveness of advice to women to take folic acid supplements is limited, mainly because 50% of pregnancies are unplanned. However, mandatory folic acid food fortification programmes in North America have been very successful in reducing NTD rates. I...

The role of folate in malaria - implications for home fortification programmes among children aged 6-59 months.

Folic acid and iron supplementation has historically been recommended as the preferred anaemia control strategy among preschoolers in sub-Saharan Africa and other resource-poor settings, but home fortification of complementary foods with multiple micronutrient powders (MNPs) can now be considered the preferred approach. The World Health Organization endorses home fortification with MNPs contain...

Intake of dietary folate and folic acid in Germany based on different scenarios for food fortification with folic acid

PURPOSE Besides the adverse health effects of a low folate intake, the risks of high intakes of folic acid have moved into the focus. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential range of folate and folic acid intake of the German population under consideration of different fortification scenarios. METHODS Food consumption data of 13,926 participants of the German National Nutrition...

School of Public Health FORTIFICATION OF WHEAT FLOUR WITH FOLIC ACID AND IRON BENEFITS AND RISKS A Literature Review

How much folate is in Canadian fortified products 10 years after mandated fortification?

OBJECTIVE In 1998, the Canadian government mandated folic acid fortification of white flour and enriched grain products to lower the prevalence of neural tube defects. There is now growing concern over the potential harmful effects of too much folic acid on some segments of the population. Given that the actual amount of folate in Canadian foods is unknown, the objective of this study was to me...