NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who eat plenty of folate had
a lower risk of colon and rectal cancers in a new study that
examined the effects of folic acid fortification in the United
States. In addition, the study did not find any extra cancer-
related danger at very high levels of folate -- as some
researchers have worried -- over close to a decade. The benefit
and possible harm of folate is "definitely still an open
question," said study author Todd Gibson, from the National
Cancer Institute in Rockville, Maryland. But, he said, "there
seems to be an association between people who report higher
folate with those people who have a lower risk of colorectal
cancer." In the late 1990s, the U.S. and Canadian governments
began requiring that folic acid (a synthetic form of folate) be
added to grain products in order to prevent some birth defects
that had been linked to low folate levels in pregnant women.
While previous studies have generally suggested that a diet rich
in folate decreases the risk of colorect