Drinkers of Alcohol Cut Risks with Folate (Folic Acid)

Drinkers of Alcohol Cut Risks with Folate, Study Finds

Australian Broadcasting Corporation: News Online

08-10-05

A diet rich in folate (folate acid) may counter the risk of breast cell multiplication caused by drinking alcohol, new research says.

The Australian study, published online in the British Medical Journal, followed 17,447 Melbourne women from 1990 to the end of 2003, by which time 537 had developed breast cell problems.

The researchers found no link between aberrant breast cells and folate consumption.

But a diet rich in folate (folate acid) appears to mitigate the breast cell risk associated with alcohol, Professor Graham Giles of Council Victoria and team reports.

"Women who had high alcohol consumption and low intake of folate had an increased risk of breast problems, but those women who had high alcohol consumption and moderate to high levels of folate intake had no increased risk," he writes.

Folate (folate acid) is a B vitamin found in a range of foods including liver, spinach, asparagus, broccoli, avocado and some fortified bread and breakfast cereal.

More than a hundred foods in Australia have been approved for fortification with folate since 1995 because of its role in neural tube defects.

Some studies have also suggested it has a protective effect against colon aberrant cell division.

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