Folic acid and B vitamins fail to ward off cancers in women

Boston, November 17: Contrary to the long held belief, a daily dose of Folic acid and Vitamin B supplements do not help prevent malignancies in women, a new American research suggests.

For the study, 5,442 women, average age 63 years, were enrolled from the ‘Women's Antioxidant and Folic Acid Cardiovascular Study’ held earlier.

All women either had a pre-existing cardiovascular disease or stood a threefold risk of developing the disease.

For 7.3 years (April 1998 through July 2005) the women were randomly put on either a daily-dose active supplement pill containing 2.5mg of folic acid, 50mg of vitamin B6 and 1mg of vitamin B12, or a placebo pill.

A total 379 invasive cancerdefine cases were noted during the follow-up analysis, researchers highlighted. 187 women in the active supplement group were diagnosed with cancers, compared to 192 in the placebo pill group.

Interestingly, results of the study posted an intriguing trend. Women aging above the average age and taking active supplements were 25 percent less likely to develop cancers and 38 percent less likely to develop breast tumors in particular. But utmost caution is needed to interpret these results. "It's something that needs further study," Dr. Shumin Zhang, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard University and a researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston marked.

The findings negate the hypothesis wherein low levels of folic acid and B vitamins were suspected to trigger cancers by particularly afflicting DNA, thus altering the cell repair and breakdown procedures.

Medically, optimum levels of folic acid are crucial for normal DNA synthesis and repair. While folate deficiency triggers an imbalance in DNA precursors, uracil misincorporation into DNA, and chromosome breakage, the problem amplifies in the event of vitamin B deficiency.

Folic acid deficiency is well documented to cause megaloblastic anaemia, neural tube defects in the neonate and heart disease.

The findings of the study feature in the November 5 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association.