Folate may ease damage to hearts
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Studies in rats show that high doses of folate, already used to prevent anemia in pregnant women and to prevent birth defects, can blunt the effects of heart attacks, researchers from Johns Hopkins University say.
Giving the supplement for days before a heart attack or infusing it into the bloodstream during an attack reduced damage to the heart by 90%, they found in a study that will be published next month in the journal Circulation.
The researchers cautioned that people should not self-medicate until a clinical trial can be performed, but they held out hope that the supplement could be used prophylactically in people at high risk for heart attacks and to treat victims.
