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Fortifying foods with B vitamins and giving
additional supplements to people with heart disease -- and
those at risk -- could save lives and money.
People with high blood levels of the
amino acid homocysteine experience more heart attacks and
death from heart disease. Giving patients inexpensive and
safe therapy with the B vitamins folic acid and vitamin B12
can lower homocysteine levels, researchers note.
The researchers built a computer model
to estimate the benefit of fortifying bread and cereal with
folic acid, along with any additional benefits from taking
supplements of folic acid and B12, in preventing heart disease.
Grain fortification alone -- which the
Food and Drug Administration has required since January 1998
-- was predicted to cut the number of heart attacks and other
heart disease events by 8%
in women and 13% in men over a period of 10 years,
they found, with similar reductions in deaths from heart disease.
And if patients with known heart disease
took vitamins containing 1 milligram (mg) of folic acid and
0.5 mg of vitamin B12, Tice and colleagues report, about 310,000
fewer people would die from heart disease over a 10-year period
compared with grain fortification alone.
Vitamin B-12 is found in
meat, fish, poultry and fortified milk and breakfast cereals.
Folate or folic acid is found in many
fruits and vegetables and in fortified foods.
The
Journal of the American Medical Association 2001; 286: 936-943
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