Folic Acid in Stroke Prevention in Countries without Mandatory Folic Acid Food Fortification: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:Additional folic acid (FA) treatment appears to have a neutral effect on reducing vascular risk in countries that mandate FA fortification of food (e.g., USA and Canada). However, it is uncertain whether FA therapy reduces stroke risk in countries without FA food fortification. The purpose of this study was to comprehensively evaluate the efficacy of FA therapy on stroke prevention in countries without FA food fortification. METHODS:PubMed, EMBASE, and clinicaltrials.gov from January 1966 to August 2016 were searched to identify relevant studies. Relative risk (RR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was used as a measure of the association between FA supplementation and risk of stroke, after pooling data across trials in a random-effects model. RESULTS:The search iden

SUBMITTER: Hsu CY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5836580 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature