Folate supplementation affects asthma risk in offspring?

Since the discovery of the link between insufficient folic acid and congenital abnormalities, pregnant women worldwide have been recommended by governments and health organizations to supplement their diets with folate. Coincidentally, along with the worldwide campaigns for pregnant women to have diets supplemented with folate, the prevalence of allergic asthma in humans has increased.

While being an important nutrient for pregnant women to protect against a number of congenital abnormalities in their fetus, folate is also a source of methyl donors which could affect genetic expression by altering DNA methylation within regulatory regions of genes.

In their experiment, Hollingsworth’s group fed mice a methyl donors-supplemented diet during gestation and weaning. They found that maternal dietary intake of methyl donors enhanced the development and severity of allergic asthma in the F1 progeny as well as the F2 generation mice.

This study suggested that the increase in prevalence of allergic asthma may in part be related to increased folate supplementation amongst pregnant women. However, because of the importance of folate supplementation to prevent congenital abnormalities and the limitations of directly applying mouse model findings to humans, further research of dietary supplementation during pregnancy is required before changes to current recommendations are considered.

By

Zai yang Phua
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