Folic Acid Supplements and Colorectal Cancer Risk: Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2015 Jul 2

PMID 26131763

Citations 26

Authors

Tingting Qin

Mulong Du

Haina Du

Yongqian Shu

Meilin Wang

Lingjun Zhu

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Numerous studies have investigated the effects of folic acid supplementation on colorectal cancer risk, but conflicting results were reported. We herein performed a meta-analysis based on relevant studies to reach a more definitive conclusion. The PubMed and Embase databases were searched for quality randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published before October 2014. Eight articles met the inclusion criteria and were subsequently analyzed. The results suggested that folic acid treatment was not associated with colorectal cancer risk in the total population (relative risk [RR] = 1.00, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.82-1.22, P = 0.974). Moreover, no statistical effect was identified in further subgroup analyses stratified by ethnicity, gender, body mass index (BMI) and potential confounding factors. No significant heterogeneity or publication bias was observed. In conclusion, our meta-analysis demonstrated that folic acid supplementation had no effect on colorectal cancer risk. However, this finding must be validated by further large studies.

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