Folic acid protects baby hearts

Flour can be fortified with folic acid
BBC

Mandatory fortification of bread with folic acid would slash the risk of babies being born with a heart problem, experience from Canada shows.

Rates of severe congenital heart defects among newborns in Quebec fell significantly after the move to fortify flour and pasta began in 1998.

The British Medical Journal online study lends support to calls for introducing fortification to Europe.

But others argue against this, saying it would inevitably harm some people.

The fear is that adding folic acid to products like bread could harm some elderly people if they are deficient in other B vitamins.

In extreme cases, this can cause irreversible damage to the nervous system.

There is also concern that it may also increase the risk of certain cancers, including bowel cancer, in some people.

In 2007 the UK's watchdog, the Food Standards Agency, agreed with expert recommendations to fortify bread or flour with folic acid.

Since then, at the request of the Chief Medical Officer, an expert working group on folate has been considering the results of recent trials looking at the effect of folic acid on the risk of some types of cancer.Read more..