Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered that the lack of a critical enzyme in the folic acid metabolic pathway leads to neural tube birth defects in developing embryos.
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Taking a daily multivitamin containing the B vitamin folic acid is one of the best ways to prevent birth defects and an important step toward having a healthy baby, yet only about one-third of women know about it.
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Study results indicate that physicians respect patient autonomy in the case of uniformly and commonly lethal fetal anomalies, respecting the wishes of parents in how to manage the pregnancy.
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Wheat flour milled in Nigeria will soon be fortified with folic acid, a B vitamin known for preventing serious or fatal birth defects of the spine and brain. Women who may become pregnant are encouraged to daily choose foods fortified with this essential vitamin because it can prevent the majority of these devastating birth defects known as neural tube defects.
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The bioavailability of folic acid does not significantly differ between delivery in standard tablet or softgel capsule forms, according to research published in this month's Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Folic Acid helps support a women's pregnancy and development of a healthy newborn.
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TherapeuticsMD, Inc., parent company of vitaMedMD, LLC, a specialty pharmaceutical company, announced that on May 10, 2012 it launched its third prescription prenatal vitamin, vitaMedMD RediChew Rx, following the successful launch of vitaMedMD One Rx earlier this month and vitaMedMD Plus Rx last month.
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Pesticides and pollutants are related to an alarming 450 percent increase in the risk of spina bifida and anencephaly in rural China, according to scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and Peking University.
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The researchers say that the birth defects like brain and spine problems, called neural tube defects, as well as cleft lip and cleft palate were less common in mothers who closely followed either a Mediterranean diet or the food guide pyramid.
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A Creighton University School of Medicine researcher has been awarded a $2.7 million grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate a possible link between the ingestion of tortillas and corn-based food products contaminated with a fungal toxin and increased risk for birth defects.
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New research, published by Cell Press in the January 19th issue of the journal Developmental Cell, provides intriguing insight into how the nervous system forms during very early embryonic development.
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Exposure to tetrachloroethylene (also known as perchlorethylene, PCE) may cause congenital birth defects. A study of expectant women exposed to PCE in drinking water, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Environmental Health, found an increased risk of oral clefts and neural tube defects in their children.
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New research out of Wake Forest University School of Medicine provides for the first time a solid scientific answer for the long-standing question of whether there is an association between preterm birth and brain malformations.
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Women of childbearing age can reduce the risk of having a child born with a neural tube defect such as spina bifida by eating enough folate or folic acid. However, folate prevents only about 70 percent of these defects.
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Diet and nutrition counseling for virtually all overweight and obese women of childbearing age can reduce health risks associated with excess weight for mothers and children alike, according to a newly released position paper from the American Dietetic Association and the American Society of Nutrition.
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Immigrant women are less likely to use folic acid supplements before pregnancy to prevent spina bifida, particularly those who recently immigrated to the country, according to a new study led by a St. Michael's Hospital physician in collaboration with Statistics Canada, Health Canada and the University of Toronto.
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Children born to women who have low blood levels of vitamin B12 shortly before and after conception may have an increased risk of a neural tube defect, according to an analysis by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, Trinity College Dublin, and the Health Research Board of Ireland.
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Fortification of corn masa flour products could increase folic acid intake by nearly 20 percent for Mexican-Americans, who are at a 30-40 percent higher risk for a number of severe brain and spinal birth defects, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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Organs, such as the brain or the heart, are not simply collections of the correct types of cells that are required for their function. If these cells are not organized and shaped properly, the organ simply does not function. One crucial part of this organization is to bend sheets of connected cells ("epithelia") so that they form a structure that is an integral part of the functional organ.
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Healthy men who report lower levels of the nutrient folate in their diets have higher rates of chromosomal abnormalities in their sperm, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
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Taking a folic acid pill a day — a simple measure to prevent severe birth defects — is under-promoted in the media, under-recommended by health care providers and underused by women of childbearing age, according to a new review of studies.
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