Folate intake may lower risk of cleft lip or palate. (At Least 240 [micro]G/Day in Diet).

LOS ANGELES -- Women who consumed at least 240 [micro]g/day of dietary folate starting a month before conception halved the risk of fetal cleft lip or palate, compared with women who consumed 149 [micro]g/day or less of folate, Dr. Regine P.M. Steegers-Theunisen said.

Alternatively, use of 4-5 mg/day of folic acid supplements reduced the risk for cleft lip or palate by 43%, compared with no use of the supplements, Dr. Steegers-The-unisen said at the annual meeting of the Society for Gynecologic Investigation.

Combining a folate-rich diet with folic acid supplements produced even better results in the study of 174 mothers of children with nonsyndromic cleft lip or cleft palate and 203 control mothers without the defects.

Among those who took 4-5 mg/day of supplementary folic acid plus a diet containing 214 [micro]g/day of folate, the risk of cleft lip/palate was 80% lower than among those who did not use supplements and consumed less than 150 mg/day of dietary folate, said Dr. Steegers-Theunisen of the University of Nijmegen (the Netherlands).

Supplement users who had a slightly higher dietary level of folate-236 [micro]g/day--had a 66% drop in the risk for deft lip or palate, compared with non-supplement users who consumed less than 150 [micro]g/day of dietary folate.

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