Folic acid efficacy in primary prevention of stroke

New studies in randomized clinical trials on adults with hypertension have shown that 

the vitamin B is effective in preventing stroke.

As in the research appeared in the September 18, 2013 issue of the medical journal of American Academy of Neurology says:

Vitamin B lowered the risk of stroke in the studies overall by seven percent. However, taking supplements did not appear to affect the severity of strokes or risk of death from stroke.
Folic acid, a supplemental form of folate (vitamin B9), which is often found in fortified cereals, appeared to reduce the effect of vitamin B. Researchers did not find a reduction in stroke risk for vitamin B12.
"Based on our results, the ability of vitamin B to reduce stroke risk may be influenced by a number of other factors such as the body's absorption rate, the amount of folic acid or vitamin B12 concentration in the blood, and whether a person has kidney disease or high blood pressure," said Yuming. "Before you begin taking any supplements, you should always talk to your doctor."

In another study (JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association/March 15, 2015) that included more than 20,000 adults in China with high blood pressure but without a history of stroke or heart attack, the combined use of the hypertension medication enalapril and folic acid, compared with enalapril alone, significantly reduced the risk of first stroke, according to a study.

"The CSPPT is the first large-scale randomized trial to test the hypothesis using individual measures of baseline folate levels. In this population without folic acid fortification, we observed considerable individual variation in plasma folate levels and clearly showed that the beneficial effect appeared to be more pronounced in participants with lower folate levels."

"We speculate that even in countries with folic acid fortification and widespread use of folic acid supplements such as in the United States and Canada, there may still be room to further reduce stroke incidence using more targeted folic acid therapy -- in particular, among those with the TT genotype and low or moderate folate levels."


Original research papers cited and references/quotes thankfully shared from:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130918175553.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150315170424.htm
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2205876
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2205875

For more on Folate and Folic Acid
http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-1017-folic%20acid.aspx?activeingredientid=1017&activeingredientname=folic%20acid
http://www.drugs.com/folic_acid.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folic_acid 

Picture courtesy:
Thankfully shared from various sources on Internet