EVEN a large percentage increase of a very small number may still leave a small figure.

The anxiety that may be occasioned because of six women who died from breast cancer out of a group of 210 because there was a preponderance in the six of those taking folic acid is not a sound reason for abandoning the practice of taking supplements of folic acid for all those who could become pregnant.

The number of women affected in this survey was so small as to be technically statistically insignificant. A very different result from the statistically significant findings of taking folic acid before becoming pregnant, and during the first few months of pregnancy.

This prevents between 60 and 70 per cent of the cases of neural-tube defects. These were once responsible for many of those labour-ward tragedies when a longed for baby was born with a neural-tube defect.

A neural tube defect is the technical term for a series of abnormalities that range from spina bifida occulta, in which the deficiency in the spinal column is invisible to the naked eye, to conditions in which the spinal cord bulges out through the spine. The more severe degrees of spina bifida are usually associated with hydrocephalus, the situation in which the baby has an ever-expanding head as the pressure of the fluid within the brain and skull increases.

Babies with severe spina bifida are likely to have paralysis of both of their lower limbs and a lifetime of double incontinence.

It is probable too that there are other congenital defects that have a less close relationship to low levels of maternal folic acid. Women of reproductive age who are not using contraception should continue to take folic acid supplements.

The advantage of the folic acid are not confined to a pregnant woman and hence her unborn child.

There is a relationship between folic acid levels and those of homocysteine. An increase in folic acid consumption lowers the blood level of homocysteine.

If homocysteine levels are high there may be an increased risk of ischaemic heart disease (coronary heart attacks) peripheral arterial disease and strokes.

Recent studies have also suggested that folic acid supplements may reduce the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.

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