Folic acid potential for stomach cancer

Folic acid supplements could prevent cancer

A daily dose of folic acid could help prevent stomach cancer, new research suggests.

Pregnant women are advised to take the supplement to protect their unborn child and prevent birth defects.

Now, scientists have found folic acid had a beneficial effect on digestive tract cancers in beagles.

It is hoped the results may be applicable to human gastric cancers and that folate could be used to prevent the development of digestive tract cancers.

It is possible that high dose folic acid might postpone the development of gastric cancer

Dr Sh-Dong Xiao

Lack of the nutrient can activate substances called proto-oncogenes that promote the development of tumours, say scientists.

In the first reported study of its kind, published in the medical journal Gut, scientists gave a cancer-inducing chemical to 16 dogs for eight months.

For 15 months, half the dogs were treated with 20mg of folic acid.

Tissue samples were taken from the gut wall every two to three months.

All eight dogs given the cancer-inducing chemical alone, developed stomach cancer.

Folic acid supplements

While only three of the dogs treated with folic acid did so.

Fifteen months after the experiment, circulating and gastric tissue levels of folate were still very high in the dogs given the supplement.

Dr Sh-Dong Xiao, of the Shanghai Institute of Digestive Disease, which carried out the research, said a folate intake of 400g a day, largely obtained from dietary sources, usually prevents folate deficiency.

He suggested higher doses might need to be obtained from supplements.

He said: "It is possible that high dose folic acid might postpone the development of gastric cancer.

"It is hard to draw the conclusion that high dose folic acid only postpones but does not prevent the development of gastric cancer.

"Our study has shown it has a marked interventional effect on gastric carcinogenesis."