Mineral water fortified with folic acid, vitamins B6, B12, D and calcium improves folate status and decreases plasma homocysteine concentration in men and women.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Folic Acid in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The researchers investigated the effects of mineral water fortified with folic acid, vitamins B(6), B(12), D and calcium on folate concentrations in serum and erythrocytes, serum vitamin B(12) and plasma homocysteine concentrations in free-living subjects.

In addition, the researchers investigated the bioavailability of calcium added to mineral water by measuring urinary calcium excretion and serum alkaline phosphatase activity.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 66 subjects taking part.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Outpatient dietary intervention with free-living subjects in Eastern Finland.

Altogether, 66 subjects were recruited for the study.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and parallel-group study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Folic Acid and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Blinding on both sides kept the subjects and researchers unaware of who received Folic Acid.

Some subjects received a placebo instead of Folic Acid, giving a reference point.

Groups ran in parallel: each of the subjects stayed in one arm throughout.

Randomized, controlled, double-blinded, parallel design.

In all, 60 subjects completed the study.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Blood Pressure, Calcium, Dietary, Folic Acid, Food, Fortified, Homocysteine, Mineral Waters and Vitamin B Complex.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Folic Acid in 66 subjects.

Its findings take up roughly 4 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2004 (European journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.