Added folic acid lowers congenital heart defects risk periconceptual supplementation backed.(News)

New Orleans -- Periconceptual folic acid supplementation appears to reduce by close to 20% the overall risk of congenital heart defects, a Dutch case-control study has shown.

This finding has important public health implications in light of the enormous number of babies born with congenital heart defects each year worldwide, Dr. Ingrid van Beynum said at the annual scientific sessions of the American Heart Association.

Indeed, congenital heart defects are the most common form of birth defects. In the United States alone, 40,000 affected babies are born each year. Periconceptual folic acid supplementation at 400 mcg/day is already recommended for the prevention of neural tube defects, but surveys indicate many women don't follow this guidance. The added benefit of a reduced risk of congenital heart defects might be more persuasive, she said.

Consumption of folic acid-fortified foods typically gets a mother only one-quarter of the way to the recommended periconceptual 400 mcg/day, noted Dr. van Beynum of Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands) Medical Centre.

She presented an analysis of a decade's worth of data from EUROCAT (European Surveillance of Congenital Anomalies), a comprehensive birth defects registry covering three Northern Dutch provinces. In 1995, the year before the study period began, the Dutch government launched a major media campaign encouraging women to take 400 mcg/ day folic acid starting 4 weeks before conception and to continue the supplements until 8 weeks afterward.

The cases comprised 611 mothers who gave birth to babies with isolated or complex heart defects unrelated to either a genetic abnormality or a syndrome; 2,401 mothers who gave birth to infants with noncardiac congenital malformations and a known chromosomal defect served as controls. Diabetic mothers, those who had used folate antagonists, and mothers of babies with neural tube defects, limb reduction, hypospadias, or oral cleft palate ...