National Folic Acid Awareness Week January 24-30, USA

Main Category: Nutrition / Diet
Article Date: 24 Jan 2005 - 13:00 PDT


USA - The National Council on Folic Acid (NCFA) is launching National Folic Acid Awareness Week, January 24-30, 2005. The campaign, "Folic Acid: You Don't Know What You're Missing!" is supported by Wyeth Consumer Healthcare and others. It will focus on nutrition and overall health, alerting the public, especially women of childbearing years, to the importance of folic acid in their lives and its many lifelong benefits.

The week is especially important due to the popularity of low-carbohydrate diets. NCFA is concerned that people who are consciously curtailing their intake of fortified grains are probably unaware that they are not getting essential vitamins and minerals necessary for health and well-being.

Folic acid is a B-vitamin necessary for proper cell growth. It can help prevent certain birth defects of the brain and spine called neural tube defects (NTDs), which occur very early in pregnancy, before most women know they are pregnant. The Institute of Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that all women of childbearing years take 400 micrograms of folic acid daily so that they can reduce their risk of having an NTD-affected pregnancy by 50 percent to 70 percent. To get enough folic acid, women should take a daily multivitamin containing folic acid and eat fortified grains in addition to a variety of foods as part of a healthy diet.

"We know that taking 400 micrograms of folic acid before and during early pregnancy from a multivitamin or fortified foods can help prevent NTDs. We are concerned that 60 percent of women of childbearing years do not take a vitamin containing folic acid on a daily basis. In addition, many women might not understand that by lowering their intake of enriched grains, they could be increasing their risk of having a pregnancy affected by a neural tube defect," says Anita Boles, chair of the National Council on Folic Acid and executive director of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition.

NTDs occur when the neural tube, which becomes the spine, does not close properly. The most common NTDs are spina bifida and anencephaly. Anencephaly is a fatal condition in which the upper end of the neural tube fails to close.

The brain fails to develop completely or is entirely absent. Spina bifida occurs when the lower end of the neural tube does not close properly, very often resulting in a lesion protruding from an opening in the back. The location and size of the opening can indicate the seriousness of the disability. Problems include paralysis, loss of bowel and bladder control and learning difficulties. Approximately 3,000 pregnancies a year are affected with an NTD. According to the CDC, the average lifetime cost to society for each infant born with spina bifida is approximately $532,000. This estimate is only an average, and for many children, the total cost may be well above $1 million. Estimated annual medical care and surgical costs for persons with spina bifida in the United States exceed $200 million.

Beginning in 1998, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration required the addition of folic acid to enriched breads, cereals, flours, pastas, rice and other grain products. According to the CDC, since the introduction of fortification, rates of NTDs have decreased by 26 percent.

Folic acid has health benefits beyond preventing NTDs. Emerging research indicates that folic acid might reduce the risk of other birth defects such as cleft lip, cleft palate and heart defects. It might also reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and colon, cervical and breast cancer.

"We encourage everyone to take a multivitamin with 400 micrograms of folic acid every day. The preliminary research findings are exciting, and we believe that taking adequate amounts of folic acid can be beneficial for men and women of all ages," said Boles.

For more information about folic acid, visit the Web site of the National Council on Folic Acid, www.folicacidinfo.org. For National Folic Acid Awareness Week campaign materials, go to www.folicacidinfo.org/campaign.

The National Council on Folic Acid is a partnership of over 80 national organizations, associations and state folic acid councils whose mission is to improve health by promoting the benefits and consumption of folic acid. Managed by the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition through a cooperative agreement with the CDC, NCFA reaches over seven million people a year with the folic acid message.

Wyeth Consumer Healthcare, a division of Wyeth, is one of the world's leaders in the development, manufacture and marketing of non-prescription medicines, vitamins and nutritional products, including the complete line of Centrum(R) vitamins.

www.folicacidinfo.org
www.folicacidinfo.org/campaign

• Additional
• References
• Citations