Blood levels of folate in young women are dropping, a disturbing development that could lead to increased birth defects and may be due to low-carb diets or the popularity of unfortified whole-grain breads.
Government health officials could only speculate on the reasons but called the backslide in this important B vitamin disturbing. It's not clear how the decline in folate levels has affected newborns, but preliminary data suggest the dramatic declines in neural tube defects seen in the late 1990s may have leveled off by 2004, said officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"This is a cause of substantial concern," said Dr. Nancy Green, medical director for the March of Dimes, which campaigns for birth defects prevention. A CDC study released Thursday found an 8 percent to 16 percent decline in folate levels in U.S. women of childbearing age, according to large blood-drawing surveys done between 1999 and 2004.
It was the first time such a decline has been seen since the start of government health campaigns urging women to make sure they get enough folic acid.
The decline was most pronounced in white women, although black women continue to be the racial group with the least folate in their blood, health officials said. It's being published this week in a CDC publication, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
It's not clear why blood folate levels dropped in this decade, but there are several possible explanations, experts said. Increasing obesity rates among young women may be a factor. Research has found obese people metabolize folate differently than thinner folk, and some doctors believe heavier women need more folic acid to prevent neural tube defects, Green said.
Vitamins and supplements are the best way to get the recommended daily dose of 400 micrograms of folic acid. But only a third of women of child-bearing age take a folic acid-containing supplement every day, he said.
Steve - a disturbing trend indeed. One of Bonnie's internships when she first started out was with the March of Dimes. She has always said that one of her greatest triumphs was helping create public awareness about the importance of folic acid in child-bearing women.
Another issue not considered in this study is that between 15-25% of the population has a genetic condition in which folic acid cannot be broken down into absorbable folate. This is why supplementing with all three forms of folate (folic acid, 5-formyl tetrahydrofolate, and L-5 methyltetrahydrofolate) to circumvent this issue is very important. At the very least, a multivitamin containing between 400-800 mcg of folic acid is essential.
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