Bowel Cancer Risk Reduced by Low Folate Level

Filed in archive Studies on April 27, 2006

As suggested by a research published in the journal Gut, low levels of folate (a B vitamin found in fruits and green leafy vegetables) can potentially cut the risk of bowel cancer.

The old knowledge is that high levels of folate protect against this disease while there is a worldwide move to fortify food products with folate, mainly to prevent birth defects and boost heath.

The research team base their findings on more than 660 people who were part of the Northern Sweden Health and Disease Cohort, which included 85,000 people at the time of the study.

Participation in the study involved completing questionnaires on lifestyle and diet and the donation of blood samples at regular intervals. After 17 years of monitoring, 226 people had been diagnosed with bowel cancer.

People with the highest blood levels of folate were just as likely to develop bowel cancer as those with the lowest blood levels, whereas people in between were almost twice as likely to develop the disease.

The research came to a conclusion that while high levels of folate may indeed protect against the development of bowel cancer, so too may low levels, suggesting something of a bell shaped curve in risk levels.

There goes amother reason to eat green leafy vegetables.

Source: EurekAlert