Your slice of morning toast got a nutritional boost in 1998. So did a bowl of pasta or rice. Bakery goods, too. Under Food and Drug Administration rules, makers of grain-based foods added folic acid to their products as of Jan. 1, 1998. Research shows all of us can benefit from more folic acid, a vitamin used in vital bodily processes.
Some studies hint at links between folic acid and lower risks of heart disease or cancer.
But the nutrient is critical for women of child-bearing age. Those birth defects include spina bifida, which retards spinal cord development, and anencephaly, which blocks brain formation. They bear a devastating price tag in medical care and emotional suffering. The government recommends we all consume 0.40 milligrams of folic acid a day. But studies show the average American has only been getting 50 percent to 70 percent of that amount.