Anita holds a Ph.D. in neurobiology with strong experience in clinical psychology and opiod receptors. The FDA has ordered that folic acid be added to all food grains by the start of the year. The rationale behind the addition of folic acid to the diet is based on the results of previous studies showing that daily doses of folic acid can prevent neural tube birth defects and that few women of childbearing age followed the recommendations on folic acid. About 4,000 women in the United States become pregnant annually with babies having neural tube defects.
Folic acid occurs naturally in leafy vegetables like spinach and in orange juice and liver.
A study just published in the Lancet has suggested that adding even a small amount of folic acid to women's diets in their childbearing years should sharply reduce brain and spinal cord birth defects. The study concluded that dosages as small as 100 mcg of folic acid per day could reduce the number of such birth defects by about 22 percent. Dosages of 400 mcg cut the defects by about 47 percent. In the Lancet study, blood levels of folate were monitored in 100 women of childbearing age in Dublin. After six months, women on the 100-microgram dosage achieved a blood level of folate that, based on previous studies, would prevent 22 percent of neural tube birth defects.