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

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

Fact: 90% of the money Americans spend on food goes to purchase processed food that is highly depleted of vitamins like folic acid. Therefore, it is no surprise that putting some back may provide some benefits as described above. However, I am no big fan of using folic acid as a supplement. I fully believe you will obtain far more benefit if you consume it the way it was designed to be consumed - in whole foods, especially vegetables. One of the easiest ways to do that would be to start the vegetable juicing program. I believe most of us benefit from having 1-3 pounds of fresh raw vegetables every day and juicing is a simple way to achieve that. If you consume that level of vegetables, you will be obtaining the equivalent of thousands of dollars worth of vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals that you could purchase in the health food store. The raw vegetables have something additional that is impossible to purchase in the store, the live raw energy that is transferred directly from the plant to you when you consume it in its raw form. Food Sources of Folate Micrograms (per 100 g of food-3.5 oz) Dark-green leafy vegetables 120-160 Other vegetables 40-100 Fruits (particularly citrus) 50-100 Beans (legumes) 50-300 Whole grains 60-120 Related Articles: Folic Acid Fortification Making A Dent Low Folate Levels Linked To Alzheimer's Disease Folic Acid May Reduce Cholesterol Heart Risk