The November 18th issue of the Journal of American Medical Assn. (JAMA) published a new study raising concern over high folic acid supplementation and increased cancer risk. The news media love this type of headline. Sales of the B vitamins are the most popular letter vitamins in the United States.
The JAMA study was based on two randomized, double-blind clinical trails during which almost 7,000 patients with ischemic heart disease were given vitamin B12, B6, or a placebo between 1998 and 2005. The trials took place in Norway, a country that does not fortify its products with folic acid. Basing the trials in Norway was significant because it allowed researchers to better gauge the impacts of folic acid supplementation. In the study, folic acid and B12 supplementation was associated with a 21% increased risk for cancer, a 38% increased risk of dying from the disease, and an 18% increase in deaths for all causes.
The Council for Responsible Nutrition took a closer look at the study and noted the majority of the participants were former smokers, and many of the cancer deaths in the study were related to lung cancer. “The real headline of the study should be that smoking increases the risk of lung cancer – the study found a total of 94 percent of the subjects who developed lung cancer were either current or former smokers”, Andrew Shao, PhD, vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs for CRN, said in a statement.
The CRN also pointed out that in the United States folic acid fortification has been mandatory since 1998 and general cancer rates have declined since that time . They also noted the Norway study’s results are “inconsistent with the larger body of data and this effect has not been observed previously.”
Bottom line: Folic acid supplementation as part of your routine daily multiple of B complex vitamins should still be considered safe and beneficial. Folic acid is a supplement that has been used to prevent neural tube defects in babies when taken as a part of a pre-natal program and beneficial in helping to reduce homocysteine levels in the general population.
But, the JAMA article makes a better headline.
