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Well-known member
January 24, 2007
Supplementing with folic acid may improve cognitive function
Readers of What's Hot will recall a recent article published on January 3 of this year which summarized the finding of Jane Durga of Wageningen University in the Netherlands and her colleagues that supplementing with folic acid for three years helped slow age-related hearing loss. In the January 20, 2007 issue of The Lancet, Dr Durga's team now reports that folic acid also improves cognitive function in older adults.
Eight hundred eighteen participants in the Folic Acid and Carotid Intima-media Thickness (FACIT) trial were assigned to 800 micrograms per day folic acid or a placebo for three years. Participants were limited to those whose total homocysteine levels were at least 13 and no greater than 26 micromoles per liter. The subjects were tested for memory, sensorimotor speed, complex speed, information processing speed, and word fluency at the beginning of the study and at its conclusion.
Serum folate was increased by 576 percent and plasma total homocysteine was 26 percent lower at the end of the study among participants who received folic acid compared to the placebo group. Of the cognitive function criteria tested, memory, information processing speed and sensorimotor speed were significantly better among those who received the vitamin.
In an accompanying editorial entitled, "Is dietary folate too low?", Martha Clare Morris and Christine C Tangney of Rush University observed that the low folate levels evident in the Dutch study population were below those of the Netherlands' RDA of 300 micrograms per day. "Many individuals within populations have folate intakes that might be suboptimum for physiological function," they write. "Our knowledge about the physiological importance of homocysteine is limited, as is our definition of inadequate folate status. To make more informed dietary recommendations for optimum folate intake, we need randomised trials that take the approach of the FACIT trial."
Supplementing with folic acid may improve cognitive function
Readers of What's Hot will recall a recent article published on January 3 of this year which summarized the finding of Jane Durga of Wageningen University in the Netherlands and her colleagues that supplementing with folic acid for three years helped slow age-related hearing loss. In the January 20, 2007 issue of The Lancet, Dr Durga's team now reports that folic acid also improves cognitive function in older adults.
Eight hundred eighteen participants in the Folic Acid and Carotid Intima-media Thickness (FACIT) trial were assigned to 800 micrograms per day folic acid or a placebo for three years. Participants were limited to those whose total homocysteine levels were at least 13 and no greater than 26 micromoles per liter. The subjects were tested for memory, sensorimotor speed, complex speed, information processing speed, and word fluency at the beginning of the study and at its conclusion.
Serum folate was increased by 576 percent and plasma total homocysteine was 26 percent lower at the end of the study among participants who received folic acid compared to the placebo group. Of the cognitive function criteria tested, memory, information processing speed and sensorimotor speed were significantly better among those who received the vitamin.
In an accompanying editorial entitled, "Is dietary folate too low?", Martha Clare Morris and Christine C Tangney of Rush University observed that the low folate levels evident in the Dutch study population were below those of the Netherlands' RDA of 300 micrograms per day. "Many individuals within populations have folate intakes that might be suboptimum for physiological function," they write. "Our knowledge about the physiological importance of homocysteine is limited, as is our definition of inadequate folate status. To make more informed dietary recommendations for optimum folate intake, we need randomised trials that take the approach of the FACIT trial."
