Folic Acid ‘Cancer Risk’ Played Down

Worries that taking extra folic acid might increase the risk of cancer have been played down by a major study.

Following Canadian research linking the vitamin with a small rise in cancer, the study in the Lancet journal looked at data from 50,000 people.

It found no significant differences in those taking folic acid.

Taken in early pregnancy, it reduces the chances of certain birth defects and there have been calls to add it to food in the UK.

Many countries including the US and Canada, South Africa and Australia, already add folate – also called folic acid or Vitamin B9 – to all flour.

It is proven to reduce the number of babies born with “neural tube defects” such as spina bifida.

One of the original reasons behind this more cautious approach in western Europe was the risk that folic acid supplementation could disguise anaemia symptoms in a small number of older people.

However, another more pressing concern was prompted by the 2007 study that found the incidence of colorectal cancer, which had been falling in the US and Canada, rose temporarily just after the vitamin was automatically added to flour.

One theory suggested that folate had boosted the growth of tiny, as-yet undetected cancers or pre-cancers, allowing them to be diagnosed earlier and giving the impression that cancer rates had increased.