Folic acid ‘lowers stroke risk’

Folic acid can “significantly” reduce the risk of suffering from a stroke, scientists have claimed today.

Research published in the Lancet medical journal found a minimum of an 18 per cent fall in risk in people talking supplements of folic acid.

Scientists from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in the US conducted an analysis of eight trials of folic acid that had stroke as an endpoint.

They revealed that taking a folic acid supplement reduced the relative risk of stroke by an average of 18 per cent.

When the treatment lasted over three years an even greater risk reduction of 29 per cent was found.

If the supplement reduced the concentration of homocysteine in the blood by more than 20 per cent then there was a 23 per cent less risk and if the patient had no previous history of stroke then their risk was reduced by a quarter.

“Our meta-analysis provides coherent evidence that folic acid supplementation can significantly reduce the risk of stroke in primary prevention,” the study’s authors write in the Lancet.

The researchers argue that further research needs to be carried out over a longer period of time “to efficiently assess the efficacy and causality of folic acid supplementation on stroke”.

And Dr Cynthia Carlsson from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health also claims more studies are needed in an accompanying comment in the Lancet.