Folic acid facial cleft study
This article was originally published in The Tan Sheet
Executive Summary
"Folic acid supplements during early pregnancy seem to reduce the risk of isolated cleft lip by about a third" according to a British Medical Journal study published online Jan. 26. Allen J. Wilcox, Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Durham, N.C., et al., found after adjusting for smoking and other confounding factors, folic acid supplementation of 400µg or more a day reduced the risk of cleft lip with or without cleft palate by 40%. In their national population based case-control study, Wilcox et al. identified 377 Norwegian infants born from 1996 to 2000 with a cleft lip (with or without cleft palate), 196 with cleft palate only and 763 controls. The researchers say, "If folic acid is able to prevent a major birth defect in addition to neural tube defects, this benefit should be included among the risks and benefits of fortifying foods with folic acid"...
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