People with high blood levels of the amino acid homocysteine experience more heart attacks and death from heart disease.And giving patients inexpensive and safe therapy with the B vitamins folic acid and cyanocobalamin can lower homocysteine levels.
Fortifying foods with B vitamins and giving additional supplements to people with heart disease could save lives and money.Dr. Jeffrey A. Tice from the University of California, San Francisco, the lead author of the study, built a computer model to estimate the benefit of fortifying bread and cereal with folic acid, along with any additional benefits from taking supplements of folic acid and cyanocobalamin, in preventing heart disease.
It was found that grain fortification alone reduced the number of heart attacks and the other heart attack events to about 8% in women and 13 % in men.
Tice also noticed that "the evidence for the beneficial effects of vitamin therapy to lower homocysteine is much stronger than that for other dietary supplements promoted for heart disease prevention like garlic and vitamin E."
