Red Blood Cell Folate Clinical Trial
Official title:
Bioavailability of Folic Acid and L-5-methyltetrahydrofolic Acid in Fortified Bread: a Randomized Placebo-controlled Trial
Folic acid is the synthetic form of vitamin folate. Because of its high stability and
bioavailability, it is the form of folate added to bread in Canada to reduce birth defects.
There are health concerns about long-term folic acid consumption. Another form of folate,
L-5-methyltetrahydrofolic acid (L-5-MTHF) has become available which does not have these
health concerns. Unfortunately L-5-MTHF is not as stable as folic acid, but the
investigators have developed a method to stabilize L-5-MTHF in food. The investigators plan
to conduct a randomized trial to compare the bioavailability of bread fortified with
L-5-MTHF versus folic acid.
The investigators hypothesize that bread fortified with L-5-MTHF will increase red cell
folate over 16 weeks to the same extent as bread fortified with equimolar folic acid.
See above. ;
Allocation: Randomized, Endpoint Classification: Bio-availability Study, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Double Blind (Subject, Investigator)