Prenatal Folic Acid Supplement/dietary Folate and Cognitive Development in 4-year-old Offspring from the Japan Environment and Children's Study

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2023 Jun 12

PMID 37308528

Authors

Hidekazu Nishigori

Toshie Nishigori

Taku Obara

Taeko Suzuki

Miyuki Mori

Karin Imaizumi

Tsuyoshi Murata

Hyo Kyozuka

Yuka Ogata

Akiko Sato

Kosei Shinoki

Seiji Yasumura

Mitsuaki Hosoya

Koichi Hashimoto

Keiya Fujimori

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

We evaluated the association between maternal prenatal folic acid supplement use/dietary folate intake and cognitive development in 4-year-old offspring (N = 3445) using data from the Japan Environment and Children's Study. Cognitive development was evaluated using the Kyoto Scale of Psychological Development 2001. Multiple regression analysis revealed that offspring of mothers who started using folic acid supplements pre-conception had a significantly higher language-social developmental quotient (DQ) (partial regression coefficient 1.981, 95% confidence interval 0.091 to 3.872) than offspring of mothers who did not use such supplements at any time throughout their pregnancy (non-users). Offspring of mothers who started using folic acid supplements within 12 weeks of gestation had a significantly higher cognitive-adaptive (1.489, 0.312 to 2.667) and language-social (1.873, 0.586 to 3.159) DQ than offspring of non-users. Regarding daily dietary folate intake from preconception to early pregnancy, multiple regression analysis revealed that there was no significant association with any DQ area in the 200 to < 400 µg and the ≥ 400 µg groups compared with the < 200 µg group. Maternal prenatal folic acid supplementation starting within 12 weeks of gestation (but not adequate dietary folate intake from preconception to early pregnancy) is positively associated with cognitive development in 4-year-old offspring.

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