Folic Acid Seems to Prevent Major Birth Defects, Study Says

A major study in China has provided strong new evidence of the power of folic acid supplements to prevent serious birth defects of the brain and spine, such as spina bifida. Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Beijing Medical University gave folic acid supplements to about 130,000 women in two areas of China, one of which had a high incidence of neural tube birth defects.

The team reports in today’s New England Journal of Medicine that women who took the supplements before they were pregnant and during the first three months of pregnancy had as much as an 85% reduction in the incidence of the defects.

Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II