Folic acid enrichment of bread does not appear to affect zinc absorption in young women.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Zinc and Folic Acid in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The researchers sought to determine the effect of added folic acid on zinc absorption from white bread with high and low zinc contents.

Why It Was Studied

This raises concerns about the zinc status of high-risk groups such as infants, pregnant women, and older persons.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 15 women were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults, women only.

Zinc absorption was measured in 15 healthy women (22-33 y), each of whom consumed 4 single meals spaced 2 wk apart in a randomized crossover design.

Meals were extrinsically labeled with 65Zn and absorption was estimated from whole-body retention measurements.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized and crossover study.

Because people in this Zinc study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

In the crossover set-up each of the women took both Zinc and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

Folate status was assessed by measuring plasma and erythrocyte folate and plasma homocysteine concentrations.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Bread, Folic Acid, Food, Fortified, Homocysteine, Intestinal Absorption, Neural Tube Defects and Zinc.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and crossover study of Zinc and Folic Acid in 15 women.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 3 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2001 (The American journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in United States.

More context: the related Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc library page, all human trials.