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Folic acid does not prevent heart disease

March 9, 2008 in Dietary Supplements by Allen | No comments

You may have heard that you should take folic acid to prevent heart disease.

Why? Because folic acid reduces homocysteine levels in the blood and high homocysteine levels have been associated with heart disease.

Cool idea and, up until recently, a lot of folks bought into this recommendation.

Well, it turns out it probably isn’t true.

Some researchers from the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine did a “meta-analysis” of 12 clinical trials involving 52,000 participants and found that folic acid does NOT reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease or all-cause mortality.

Whoops!

You wonder how much money has been spent on folic acid in the hopes of receiving some health benefit.

Instead, the authors of the study suggest people’s time and money should be focused elsewhere:

“It is important to focus on strategies of proven benefit in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, including smoking cessation, lipid reduction, treatment of hypertenion and diabetes, and maintenance of a healthy weight and physical activity.”

Bravo!

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

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