April 2009

Why Not Take Vitamins Containing Folic Acid.
It Can't Hurt. Or Can It??

Supplemental vitamins are marketed to the public as risk-free aids for improving health and extending life. A series of randomized research trials have called this assumption into question.

For example, regular doses of folic acid (folate) to have been used, with no research support, as a way to prevent recurrence of colo-rectal cancers. A recent study found this practice to be associated, in fact, with a slightly higher risk of more aggressive recurrence of the cancer.

Many men take high dose folic acid supplements to avoid a heart attack or stroke. The same study found no support for this practice either. Worse, it found that folic acid taken in daily doses commonly used in vitamin pills actually increases the ten year probability of prostate cancer in men over 57 years of age. The probability was only 3% among those taking placebo compared to almost 10% among those taking folic acid.

There may be a clue here why, compared to other countries, health care costs are higher in the US than in other first world countries, while life expectancy is shorter. More health care does not necessarily equate with better health care.