The report appears in the Sept. 30 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
"We have found that over the years the percentage of women reporting taking a vitamin containing folic acid every day has gone back down to 33 percent in 2005," said report co-author Heather Carter, a CDC nutrition epidemiologist.
The researchers also found that the percentage of women who were aware of folic acid increased from 78 percent in 2004 to 84 percent in 2005.
While awareness increased, the percentage of women who know that folic acid prevents birth defects remained unchanged at 25 percent. And the percentage of women who know that folic acid should be taken before pregnancy dropped from 12 percent in 2004 to just 7 percent in 2005, the lowest percentage since 1997, according to the survey.
There are number of reasons why women don't take folic acid supplements, Carter noted. "The most common reason for not taking a vitamin is forgetting to take it," she said. "Twenty-eight percent say they forget to take a vitamin."
Many women also think they don't need to take a vitamin, Carter said. "Some women also believe that they can get the vitamin from the food they eat," she said. "We need to motivate women to take either a vitamin supplement or get folic acid from fortified foods."
Women of childbearing age are advised to take folic acid, a B vitamin, every day. Folic acid can also come from vitamin pills or foods such as enriched breads and cereals, leafy green vegetables and citrus fruits.
"Every women of childbearing age needs to be consuming a vitamin containing 400 micrograms of folic acid every day to try to prevent serious birth defects of the brain and spine," Carter stressed.
These birth defects most often include the neural tube defects spina bifida and anencephaly (incomplete brain formation). These birth defects, occurring in an estimated 3,000 pregnancies in the United States each year, can cause lifelong disability or death, according to the CDC.
One expert agrees with the importance of getting enough folic acid, and thinks that women can get the folic acid they need by eating vitamin-enriched foods.
The difficulty in getting all women of childbearing age to get enough folic acid owes to a combination of education and economics, said Tsunenobu Tamura, a professor of nutrition science at the University of Alabama.
"However, if women are eating enriched grain products like bread and cereal, they should get folic acid in addition to the folic acid they are getting from regular food," Tamura said.
Tamura encourages women to get folic acid from foods. "If you go to the grocery story you should select items that contain enriched flour to get folic acid," he said. "If women get folic acid through enriched foods, they may not need to take folic acid supplementation."
But another expert thinks that taking a supplement is the best way to guarantee that women are getting enough folic acid.
"To ensure that women get 400 micrograms of folic acid daily, the most assured way is though a multivitamin supplement," said report co-author Joanne Petrini, director of the perinatal data center at the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation.
There are probably not a lot of women getting the required amount of folic acid through diet, Petrini said. "Only a third are getting it through supplements, which means that 70 percent don't," she added.
More information
The CDC can tell you more about folic acid.
Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
6 States Chosen for Youth and Environment Study
Pregnant women and others of childbearing age in six states will be the first participants in the largest-ever U.S. study of children that will track 100,000 kids from the womb to age 21 to learn how the environment affects their health, the Associated Press reported.
Participating communities and the institutions leading the research will include:
- Orange County, Calif.; University of California, Irvine.
- Duplin County, N.C.,; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- Queens County, N.Y.; Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
- Montgomery County, Pa.; Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Drexel University.
- Salt Lake County, Utah; University of Utah.
- Waukesha County, Wis.; University of Wisconsin-Madison and Medical College of Wisconsin.
The researchers plan to enroll 1,500 women in each county over five years. They will record environmental exposures during pregnancy and assess how each one may have contributed to the subsequent onset of pediatric diseases, including asthma, learning disabilities, and autism, the AP reported.
Initial results could come as early as 2010, a National Institutes of Health spokesman told the wire service.
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New Hormone Therapy for Menopause Approved
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the Berlex Inc. drug Angeliq (drospirenone and estradiol) as a form of hormone-replacement therapy for moderate-to-severe menopausal symptoms, according to a company statement issued Thursday.
The active ingredient drospirenone, already found in the company's Yasmin oral contraceptive approved in 2001, acts as a mild diuretic, the company said. Berlex said it is studying whether it could help reduce blood pressure in menopausal women with hypertension.
The estrogen component is estradiol, the same estrogen produced by the ovaries prior to menopause, the company said.
Women with liver, kidney or adrenal disease shouldn't take Angeliq, and patients on drugs that increase body levels of potassium should ask their doctor before beginning Angeliq, Berlex said.
Since 2002, when a major U.S. study found that women taking HRT had a higher incidence of heart attacks, strokes, blood clots and breast cancer, doctors have been asked to prescribe drugs containing estrogen at the lowest effective doses and for the shortest duration possible. Estrogen therapy shouldn't be used by women with undiagnosed abnormal vaginal bleeding or a suspected or known history of breast cancer, Berlex said.
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Why Most Children Don't Walk to School
Despite the benefits of walking -- including a lower risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and colon cancer -- only 15 percent of American children walk to school, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has concluded from new research.
Distance from home to school is seen as the biggest barrier, followed by the perceived dangers of too much traffic, crime, and inclement weather, the CDC said in Thursday's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Compared with a similar survey in 1969, when nearly half of American children walked to school, distance has become a growing factor. There was an increase of 2 million students from 1969 to 2001, and a corresponding decrease in the number of schools, from 70,869 to 69,697. More students and fewer schools means a greater percentage of kids now live farther than 1 mile from their schools, the CDC said.
The survey involved 1,705 adults who reported having at least one child aged 5 to 18, the agency said.
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New Food Pyramid for Kids Introduced
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has introduced its first food pyramid specifically designed for 6- to 11-year-old children.
The Web-based pyramid, which includes an interactive computer game, stresses good eating habits, including fruit and vegetables, whole grains and healthy sources of protein. It also recommends at least 60 minutes a day of physical activity, the Washington Post reported.
The interactive computer game features a rocket ship that provides children with a visual reminder of how well they're doing in terms of healthy eating and exercise. Eating the right kinds of foods and getting physical activity fuels the rocket ship. When it has enough of the proper kind of fuel, the rocket ship takes off.
However, when the rocket ship is fueled with foods high in fat or added sugar, it sputters on the launch pad and pumps out black smoke, the Post reported.
The USDA hopes this Web site -- http://teamnutrition.usda.gov/kids-pyramid.html -- will help stem the growing obesity epidemic among American children.
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AIDS-Causing Virus May Be Weakening: Study
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, may be weakening, says a Belgian study in the journal AIDS.
Researchers at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp compared HIV-1 samples from 1986-89 and 2002-03 and concluded that the more recent samples were not able to multiply as well and were more sensitive to drugs than the older samples, BBC News reported.
However, other studies indicate that HIV is becoming more resistant.
The Belgian researchers noted that they were only able to compare 12 samples from each time period and they weren't able to fully determine any effect that drug therapy may have had on HIV. They also stressed that their findings should in no way be taken as an indication that efforts to prevent the spread of HIV should be reduced, BBC News reported.
"This was a very preliminary study, but we did find a pretty striking observation in that the viruses from the 2000s are much weaker than the viruses form the '80s," said researcher Dr. Eric Artz.
"Obviously this virus is still causing death, although it may be causing death at a slower rate of progression now. Maybe in another 50 to 60 years we might see this virus not causing death," Artz said.
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West Virginia University Latest to Offer Oral HIV Test to Students
West Virginia University has joined a number of other universities and colleges in the state offering students an orally administered HIV test, the Associated Press reported.
The test requires no blood work or needles. It's administered using a cotton swab or pad that's placed between a person's cheek and gum for five minutes. The swab draws antibodies from blood vessels in the mouth. Test results are available within two weeks.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says the test is more than 99 percent accurate. Along with WVU, the test is also offered to students at Fairmont State University, Glenville State College and Marshall University.
"Too often college students feel a false sense of security because they are young and appear to be healthy. They think, 'It can't happen to me,' " Dr. Jan Palmer, director of WVU's Student Health Service, told the AP.
"HIV affects people regardless of age, gender, race or sexual orientation," Palmer noted.
