Study says folic acid present without further fortification

NEW FINDINGS indicate that adults and newborns in Ireland have low but persistent levels of folic acid in their blood, even without mandatory fortification.

A study published this week found low quantities of “unmetabolised” folic acid, which comes from vitamin supplements or artificially enriched food, in 49 out of 50 non-fasting blood donors and in 18 out of 20 fasting mothers undergoing a Caesarean section. It also found unmetabolised folic acid in the cord blood of 17 of the babies.

Folic acid can help protect against neural tube defects such as spina bifida in the developing foetus, and current advice for women of child-bearing age is to take a supplement containing 400 micrograms of folic acid each day.

However, a high intake (over 1,000 micrograms per day) could mask symptoms of pernicious anaemia, and recent research has suggested links between high supplemental folic acid intake and the growth of some cancers, although the results are inconclusive.

In 2006 a national advisory committee here recommended mandatory folic acid fortification of bread, similar to practices in the US, Canada and Chile.

But earlier this year a group set up to assess implementation suggested there would be “no benefits to public health” to introduce mandatory fortification, in part because Ireland already has widespread voluntary fortification of foods, including brands of milk, juices and breakfast cereals.

“There’s a high level of fortification from voluntary sources here so we may be getting enough, we don’t know,” said Dr Mary Rose Sweeney, a lecturer at Dublin City University’s School of Nursing and lead author of the study on unmetabolised folic acid levels, published in the current edition of BMC Public Health.

The new study aimed to measure unmetabolised folic acid in Irish adults and newborns in the absence of mandatory fortification, she explained.

“We showed low levels, which is probably good. They are not high, so it may have no implications at all. But we would like to flag it to the authorities, so they are aware that at the current levels , folic acid is present.”

Dr Sweeney stressed the study’s findings should not be viewed in isolation but as part of an emerging picture of folic acid status here.

“It’s useful information in the overall jigsaw,” she said, noting that further investigations were under way.

“We have just conducted a larger study which is being analysed at the moment and that research should be available fairly soon.”