BMJ  2004;328:211-214 (24 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7433.211

Clinical review

Science, medicine, and the future

Is folic acid the ultimate functional food component for disease prevention?

¹ Human Nutrition, School of Applied Sciences, University of Newcastle, Brush Road, Ourimbah, NSW 2258, Australia Mark.Lucock@newcastle.edu.au

We are entering a new era in preventive medicine, which focuses on diet as a means to health. Folate has received much attention as a vitamin that can protect against many diseases, but do we know enough about the long term effects of supplementation?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Introduction

Mankind has been relatively unsuccessful in the search for the ultimate panacea for all ills; however, in the field of functional foods, few nutritional components have so many fundamental and diverse biological properties as folic acid and related B group vitamins. Moreover, few nutrients can claim to modulate, if not overtly benefit, such a wide array of clinical conditions.

Around 2500 years ago Hippocrates first espoused the "food as medicine" philosophy, which fell into obscurity by the 19th century. The first 50 years of the 20th century saw the discovery of the essential elements and vitamins, particularly in the context of deficiency diseases. Indeed, by 1912 Casimir Funk had put forward the "vitamine theory," proposing four different "vitamines" that would cure scurvy, pellagra, beri-beri, and rickets. During the 1970s the shift in emphasis from undernutrition to overnutrition and disease led to a flood of public health guidelines on optimising nutritional . . . [Full text of this article]

Worldwide interest in folate research

Folate nutrigenomics

How much and what type of folate do we need in our diet?

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