Vital Signs: Research Brief: Further Possible Benefits From Folic Acid

Folic acid enrichment of grain products has significantly reduced the rates of neural tube defects in infants. Now a new study suggests a further possible benefit: a reduction in rates of two types of childhood cancer.

Researchers used the National Cancer Institute?s surveillance system, which recorded more than 8,000 cancers in utero and in children under age 5 from 1986 to 2008. The scientists compared incidence of these cancers in the years before and after 1998, when the federal government mandated that cereal and other grain products be fortified with folic acid.

The study, published online May 21 in Pediatrics, found no difference in the incidence of all childhood cancers combined. But for two types, the difference was significant.

The incidence of primitive neuroectodermal tumors, a nervous system lesion, declined by 44 percent, while the incidence of Wilms tumor, a kidney cancer, declined by 20 percent.

The scientists acknowledge that no causal relationship can be inferred from the finding. Still, the lead author, Amy M. Linabery, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota, said, ?We feel that this is a positive message ? folic acid fortification is not increasing rates of cancer.?

She continued: ?We?ve generated some new hypotheses, but we need follow-up studies.?

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