Claim: Folic acid tied to better grades in Swedish teens
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Food fortification
text: is prevented. In humans, increased folic acid intake leads to elevated blood concentrations of naturally occurring folates and of unmetabolized folic acid. High blood concentrations of folic acid may decrease natural killer cell cytotoxicity, and high folate status may reduce the response to drugs used to treat malaria, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and cancer. A combination of high folate levels and low vitamin B-12 status may be associated with an increased risk of cognitive impairment and anemia in the elderly and, in pregnant women, with an increased risk of insulin resistance and obesity in their children. Folate has a dual effect

title: Education in Sweden
text: scale has been introduced into the Swedish school system: A, B, C, D, and E as passing grades and F as failing. B and D work as filling grades, for when a student hasn't reached all objectives for C or A but has reached most of them. If the student can't be graded, e.g. extensive truancy, the student will receive a dash instead of an F. If a student is on the verge of receiving an F in a certain subject/course, the teacher responsible for that subject will notify the student and the student's parents. If a student is given

title: Food fortification
text: red blood cells, proper growth and division of cells, and preventing neural tube defects (NTDs). In many industrialized countries, the addition of folic acid to flour has prevented a significant number of NTDs in infants. Two common types of NTDs, spina bifida and anencephaly, affect approximately 2500-3000 infants born in the US annually. Research trials have shown the ability to reduce the incidence of NTDs by supplementing pregnant mothers with folic acid by 72%. The RDA for folic acid ranges from as low as 150 μg/day for children aged 1–3 years old, to 400 μg/day for males and females over

title: Folate
text: pregnancies and those over the age of 25. Canadian public health efforts focused on promoting awareness of the importance of folic acid supplementation for all women of childbearing age and decreasing socio-economic inequalities by providing practical folic acid support to vulnerable groups of women. Folic acid food fortification became mandatory in 1998, with the fortification of 150 µg of folic acid per 100 grams of enriched flour and uncooked cereal grains. The results of folic acid fortification on the rate of neural tube defects in Canada have been positive, showing a 46% reduction in prevalence of NTDs; the magnitude of

title: Prenatal vitamins
text: Vitamins and minerals such as folic acid, calcium, and iron are in higher concentrations, while nutrients such as vitamin A are reduced to reflect the current understanding of the role that these compounds play in fetal development. The increased dosage of folic acid or folates reflects the American Dietetic Associations position that women should consume “400 μg per day of synthetic folic acid from fortified foods (cereals and other grains), supplements or both, in addition to consuming folate from foods in a varied diet.” Taking the appropriate amount of folic acid before conception can reduce or prevent the incidence of

title: Folate
text: consistent with the reduction in pulse pressure produced by folate supplementation of 5 mg per day, since hypertension is a key risk factor for stroke. Folic supplements are inexpensive and relatively safe to use, which is why people who have had strokes or who have hyperhomocysteinemia are encouraged to consume daily B vitamins including folic acid. Studies on folic acid intake from food and folate supplementation with regards to cancer risk are based on the adequacy of chronic intake. Chronically insufficient intake of folic acid may increase the risk of colorectal, breast, ovarian, pancreas, brain, lung, cervica, and prostate cancers.

title: Folate
text: 2009, citing as reasons to oppose claims for links between over consumption of folate with increased risk of cancer. In 2012 the delayed mandatory fortification program was revoked and replaced by a voluntary program, with the hope of achieving a 50% bread fortification target. According to a Canadian survey, 58% of women said they took a folic acid containing multivitamin or a folic acid supplement as early as three months before becoming pregnant. Women in higher income households and with more years of school education were more likely to use folic acid supplements before pregnancy, as were women with planned

title: Folate
text: body through urine. One potential issue associated with high doses of folic acid is that it has a masking effect on the diagnosis of pernicious anaemia due to vitamin B deficiency. An additional concern raised was that low vitamin B status in combination with high folic acid intake appeared to increase the risk of cognitive impairment. The IOM sets ULs for vitamins and minerals when evidence is sufficient. The adult UL of 1000 μg for folate (and lower for children) refers to folic acid used as a supplement, as no health risks have been associated with high intake of folate

title: Folate
text: country. These data indicate that since the addition of folic acid in grain-based foods as mandated by the FDA, the rate of neural tube defects dropped by 25% in the United States. Before folic acid fortification, about 4,100 pregnancies were affected by a neural tube defect each year in the United States. After fortification, this number declined to around 3,000. When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration set the folic acid fortification regulation in 1996, the projected increase in folic acid intake was 100 µg/d. Mandatory fortification began 1 January 1998. The U.S. National Center for Health Statistics conducts biannual

title: Folate
text: outcomes of children from birth to 9 years old. There was no correlation between maternal folic acid supplementation and an increased risk for childhood asthma. Folate is necessary for fertility in both men and women. It contributes to spermatogenesis. Therefore, receiving sufficient amounts through the diet is necessary to avoid low fertility. Also, polymorphisms in genes of enzymes involved in folate metabolism could be one reason for fertility complications in some women with unexplained infertility. Taking folic acid over years reduced the risk of cardiovascular disease by 4%, where another study found it did not affect cardiovascular disease, even while

title: Folate
text: cardiovascular disease or birth defects. Some studies show iron–folic acid supplementation in children under five may result in increased mortality due to malaria; this has prompted the World Health Organization to alter their iron–folic acid supplementation policies for children in malaria-prone areas, such as India. Because of the difference in bioavailability between supplemented folic acid and the different forms of folate found in food, the dietary folate equivalent (DFE) system was established. One DFE is defined as 1 μg of dietary folate. One μg of folic acid supplement counts as 1.7 μg DFE. The reason for the difference is that

title: Academic grading in Sweden
text: weak B (B-), when a B is represented of a grade point of 17.5 or higher. When this grade isn't really that much the grade is counted as the grade below, in this case a C, which is represented by 15 points or higher. If the student has parents from, or was born in a foreign country, he or she has the right to get education in his or her native language and also gets a valid grade in that language. Because you can only file 16 grades this gives the student the opportunity to choose which subject not to

title: Folate
text: Folate Folate, distinct forms of which are known as folic acid, folacin, and vitamin B, is one of the B vitamins. It may be taken by mouth or by injection. The recommended adult daily intake of folate in the U.S. is 400 micrograms from foods or dietary supplements. Folate in the form of folic acid is used to treat anemia caused by folic acid deficiency. Folic acid is also used as a supplement by women during pregnancy to reduce the risk of neural tube defects (NTDs) in the baby. Low levels in early pregnancy are believed to be the cause

title: Folate
text: Folate Folate, distinct forms of which are known as folic acid, folacin, and vitamin B, is one of the B vitamins. It may be taken by mouth or by injection. The recommended adult daily intake of folate in the U.S. is 400 micrograms from foods or dietary supplements. Folate in the form of folic acid is used to treat anemia caused by folic acid deficiency. Folic acid is also used as a supplement by women during pregnancy to reduce the risk of neural tube defects (NTDs) in the baby. Low levels in early pregnancy are believed to be the cause

title: Alec Coppen
text: folic acid in depression since 1970, and has consistently found low plasma and red cell folate in patients suffering from severe depression. He also showed that a folic acid supplement improved the prophylactic response to lithium. Antidepressant drugs are relatively weak therapeutic agents, only 60% of patients respond to an antidepressant compared with 40% on placebo. Combining fluoxetine with 0.5 mg of folic acid 90% of women patients responded to treatment, an observation that may have massive implications for the treatment of depression. In 1952, Coppen married Gunhild Andersson, who came from Sweden. They had one child Michael, also a

title: Folate
text: undesirable effects of fortification. In the U.S., the fortification program was expected to raise a person’s folic acid intake level by 70–130 µg/day; however, an increase of almost double that amount was actually observed. This could be from the fact that many foods are over-fortified by 160–175% over the required amount. Much of the elder population take supplements that add 400 µg to their daily folic acid intake. This is a concern because 70–80% of the population have detectable levels of unmetabolized folic acid in their blood, a consequence of folic acid supplementation and fortification, and high intakes are thought

title: Cognitive epidemiology
text: the mid-90s, with several studies beginning to shed a light on this elusive relationship. One such study examined individual compulsory school grades of Swedish pupils between the ages of 15 and 16 to find that individuals with excellent school performance had a nearly four times increased rate to develop a variation of bipolar disorder later in life than those with average grades. The same study also found that students with lowest grades were at a moderately increased risk of developing bipolar disorder with nearly a twofold increase when compared to average-grade students. A New Zealand study of 1,037 males and

title: Folate
text: populace. In the U.S., food is fortified with folic acid, only one of the many naturally occurring forms of folate, and a substance contributing only a minor amount to the folates in natural foods. After the discovery of the link between insufficient folic acid and neural tube defects, governments and health organizations worldwide made recommendations concerning folic acid "supplementation" for women intending to become pregnant. Because the neural tube closes in the first four weeks of gestation, often before many women even know they are pregnant, many countries in time decided to implement mandatory food fortification programs. A meta-analysis of

title: Nutritional neuroscience
text: acid fortification. Although the protective effects of folic acid are well documented, there remains legitimate concern that fortification could lead to toxic levels in a subset of the population. For example, elevated levels of folic acid can interact with vitamin B12 deficiency to cause neurodegeneration. Furthermore, folic acid and iron can interact to exacerbate malaria. Folic acid is the most oxidized and stable form of folate, and can also be referred to as vitamin B. It rarely occurs naturally in foods, but it is the form used in vitamin supplements as well as fortified food products. Folate coenzymes are involved

title: Neural tube defect
text: across many countries with different approaches to increasing folate consumption has found that only general food fortification with folic acid reduces neural tube defects. While there have been concerns about folic acid supplementation being linked to an increased risk for cancer, a systematic review in 2012 shows there is no evidence except in the case of prostate cancer which indicates a modest reduction in risk. A deficiency of folate itself does not cause neural tube defects. The association seen between reduced neural tube defects and folic acid supplementation is due to a gene-environment interaction such as vulnerability caused by the