Folic acid gets given all-clear

I’ve often thought bread should be fortified with folic acid to protect babies from spina bifida and other neural tube defects. Now scientists have come out in favour of this.

Why? The B vitamin plays an essential role in the development of the spinal cord and brain, and while it is found in some foods, women are advised to take supplements when they start trying for a baby, and in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, to ensure they get enough of it during that period.

However, two-thirds of women don’t take folic acid – often because they

don’t discover that they’re pregnant in time.

Every week in the UK, two babies on average are born with neural defects. Many other affected pregnancies are terminated. In an attempt, to ensure women get the supplement, more than 80 countries add it to flour. Yet Britain has resisted this, largely because of a past study that linked excess intake to an increased risk of neurological damage.

But now scientists have re-examined that research and found it to be “flawed”.

The team from Queen Mary University of London concluded that an “upper intake level is therefore unnecessary and should be removed”, and described the pregnancies affected by neural tube defects as a “completely avoidable tragedy”.