Several current studies are expected to paint a more detailed picture of the links between homocysteine and heart disease in the next few years. What we know for certain right now is that if you give people folates, the homocysteine level goes down. With spina bifida, the connection between taking folic acid and warding off sickness is even more obvious. Spina bifida results from the failure of the spine to close properly during the first month of pregnancy and it can result in newborns afflicted with varying degrees of paralysis, bowel and bladder complications, and an accumulation of fluid in the brain. She notes that medical guidelines strongly recommend that any woman in her childbearing years who is thinking at all about having children makes sure that she is taking her daily requirement of folic acid.
Most good multivitamins contain the daily requirement.
That's what we need. But about one-third of the elderly in the U.S. don't get the daily requirement. Rozen wears a lot of hats. A professor in the Departments of Human Genetics, Pediatrics and Biology, Rozen is also the scientific director of pediatric research for the McGill University Health Centre and the deputy director of the MUHC's research institute. She also set up and continues to head the Molecular Genetics Diagnostics Service of the Montreal Children's Hospital, a service that supplies people who are considering becoming parents, but whose kids might be at risk for serious genetic disorders, with the scientific information they need to properly assess their options.