Folate and Heart Health
Each year, approximately 565,000 Americans suffer a first heart attack, and another 300,000 people in this country suffer their second or third heart attacks. Many of them die.
New research suggests that high doses of folate, a B vitamin that is also known as folic acid, may potentially keep these 865,000 people alive and healthy.
For years physicians have been telling expecting mothers to take folic acid to prevent their babies from developing a devastating birth defect known as spinal bifida. Moreover, other studies in recent weeks have shown that folic acid may also help prevent dementia and premature births.
Folate’s role in heart health was further explored in a recent study conducted by researchers at John’s Hopkins University and other organizations that was published last week in the medical journal Circulation. Using an animal model, subjects that had received higher doses of folate had stronger hearts during a heart attack. Additionally, the scientists discovered that injecting subjects with folate in the minutes following a heart attack was very helpful during recovery.
While no one knows exactly why folate seems to have a protective effect, the researchers speculate that it has to do with the nutrient’s role in boosting the mitochondria that are essential for maintaining healthy blood vessels: Folate may act as a store of energy in the heart that gives much needed fuel to the organ when it is being starved of oxygen at the time of a heart attack.
This research further supports the understanding that folic acid supplementation is essential and opens the door to potentially life saving cardiovascular treatments.
***
Barbara S. Levine, R.D., Ph.D., has been a researcher, consultant, and teacher of nutrition at some of the most prestigious medical institutions in the country. Dr. Levine is a DHA & B Vitamin Center scientific advisory board member and director of the first NIH-funded Nutrition Information Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Weill-Cornell Medical College, The Rockefeller University, Hospital for Special Surgery, and Strang Cancer Prevention Center.