Folate Fortification in Commercial Foods Led to Greater Cortical Thickness
In 1996, the US began to require that enriched cereal grain products be fortified with folate, a vitamin that is particularly important to fetal brain development. A new study of children born before and after this policy change suggests that the increased folate in commercial foods after 1996 led to increases in cortical thickness in the children born after the change.
At the 2016 meeting of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, Joshua L. Roffman and colleagues described their research into the effects of folate fortification. The researchers identified 3,309 children born between 1993 and 2001 who had had a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scan. Analysis of the scans showed that children born after folate fortification began had thicker cortices than those born before the change. The frontal and temporal regions of the brain were particularly affected.
A thin cortex is a risk factor for schizophrenia and other cognitive problems.
Editor’s Note: Folate supplementation has also been shown to enhance the effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants in adults with lingering symptoms of depression.
Up to a third of the population may have a deficit of MTHFR, an enzyme important for folate metabolism, and for these people, l-methylfolate is recommended rather than folate itself.
