Obstetrician urges women to stick with ‘cheap, proven and effective’ folic acid supplements
Associate Professor Alexis Shub says supplements containing a metabolite of folic acid have not been tested for preventing neural tube defects.
It is a simple Australian-pioneered medical intervention that has prevented hundreds of thousands of neural tube defects globally.
But in recent years, several pregnancy supplements have appeared on pharmacy shelves that have ditched folic acid for an alternative metabolite of vitamin B9, methylfolate.
Associate Professor Alexis Shub, obstetrician and maternal–fetal medicine specialist, says the shift is concerning as landmark studies on the supplement’s role in preventing neural tube defects have been done on folic acid, not methylfolate — also called L-5-methyltetrahydrofolate or 5-MTHF.
“We do not know if it works,” Professor Shub, from Melbourne’s Mercy Hospital for Women, tells AusDoc.
