There has been considerable professional debate on the association between nausea and vomiting in early pregnancy (NVP) and neural tube defects (NTDs) risk. This study explored the association between NVP and NTDs risk, and the effect of folic acid supplements on the association. A 1:1 matched case-control study was conducted and conditional logistic regression model was used to analyze the ass...

In January 2000, Chilean Ministry of Health mandated the addition of folic acid (FA) to wheat flour in order to reduce the risk of neural tube defects (NTDs). This policy resulted in significant increases in serum and red cell folate in women of fertile age 1 year after fortification. To evaluate the effect of wheat flour fortification on the prevalence of NTDs in Chile we designed a prospectiv...

Malaria remains the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in children under the age of 5 years and pregnant women. To counterbalance the malaria burden in pregnancy, an intermittent preventive treatment strategy has been developed. This is based on the use of the antifolate sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine, taken at specified intervals during pregnancy, and reports show that this approach reduces t...

Cobalamin deficiency can lead to several adverse health consequences: folate trapping in the methylation cycle and subsequent impaired DNA biosynthesis; pernicious anemia hematologically, similar to that caused by folate deficiency; elevated blood homocysteine (tHcy) (risk factor for cardiovascular disease and adverse pregnancy outcomes); and neural tube defects (NTDs). Population-wide folate s...

OBJECTIVE Past studies of cigarette smoking as a contributor to orofacial clefts and neural tube defects (NTDs) used self-reports of smoke exposures. We have correlated measurements of cotinine (a nicotine metabolite) in mid-pregnancy sera with clefts and NTDs. STUDY DESIGN From a repository of >180 000 mid-pregnancy serum specimens collected in California from 2003 to 2005 and linked to deli...

UNLABELLED Systems Biology involves the study of the interactions of biological systems and ultimately their functions. Down's syndrome (DS) is one of the most common genetic disorders which are caused by complete, or occasionally partial, triplication of chromosome 21, characterized by cognitive and language dysfunction coupled with sensory and neuromotor deficits. Neural Tube Disorders (NTDs)...

OBJECTIVE To assess the efficacy of folic acid (FA) supplementation and fortification in preventing neural tube defects (NTDs) in a high prevalence region of the United States. STUDY DESIGN Active and passive surveillance methods were used to identify all fetuses/infants affected with an NTD in South Carolina. Prevalence rates were compared with FA intake to determine the effects of increased...

OBJECTIVES The methylenetetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase (MTHFD1) gene, as one of the key genes involved in the folate pathway, has been reported to play a critical role in the pathogenesis of neural tube defects (NTDs). However, the results of published studies are contradictory and inconclusive. Thus, this meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the effect of the common polymorphism in the MTHFD1 gene,...

Folic acid supplementation can prevent many cases of neural tube defects (NTDs), whereas suboptimal maternal folate status is a risk factor, suggesting that folate metabolism is a key determinant of susceptibility to NTDs. Despite extensive genetic analysis of folate cycle enzymes, and quantification of metabolites in maternal blood, neither the protective mechanism nor the relationship between...