Childhood Cancers Reduced by Prenatal Mutivitamins
February 23, 2007 by Gloria Gamat
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
When I was pregnant with my son, I remember not always being too happy when popping too many pills on a daily basis: vitamin-B complex with iron, folic acid, mutivitamin…the works, when you are pregnant.
But whenever i tell myself that the benefits will go to my baby and not to me, that was enough for me to take those vitamins religiously…so that on my 7.5-8 month of pregnancy, my ob-gyne told me to drop the mutivitamin because we were both too healthy. I really wonder if anybody can be too healthy at any time?
Anyway, here’s one more reason why pregnant women should not only watch what they eat but should not skip multivitamins:
Taking prenatal mutivitamins fortified with folic acid reduces the risk of three common childhood cancers: leukemia, brain tumours and neuroblastoma.
Such were the findings of a new study by a reseach team at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids).
According to Dr. Gideon Koren, the study’s principal investigator, director of the Motherisk Program at SickKids, a senior scientist in the SickKids Research Institute and a professor of Paediatrics, Pharmacology, Pharmacy and Medicine and Medical Genetics at the University of Toronto:
“Our research indicates that a large proportion of several early childhood cancers can be prevented by taking a prenatal multivitamin before and during pregnancy.
This affordable approach could contribute to a significant reduction in the number of childhood cancer cases diagnosed each year, which has huge implications for society at large.”
Study results have been published online on February 21, 2007 at Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics.
Read the full report.
Kate Baggott of Babylune has a similar entry.
