Folic Acid Supplementation Helps Maintain Hearing in Elderly.

A new study conducted in The Netherlands and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (146, 1:1-9, 2007) has found that Folic acid supplementation helps older adults retain their hearing. Subjects were 728 men and women between 50 and 70 years of age who had no middle ear dysfunction, unilateral hearing loss or other pathologic ear conditions unrelated  to aging. Subjects received either a supplement of 800 mcg of folic acid per day or placebo for three years. There was no folic acid fortification of food in The Netherlands.

Changes in hearing thresholds were assessed for low (0.5-kHz to 2-kHz) and high (4-kHz to 8-kHz) frequencies. After three years, thresholds of the low frequencies increased by 1.0 dB in the folic acid group and by 1.7 dB in the placebo group; folic acid supplementation did not affect the decline in hearing high frequencies. The researchers concluded folic acid supplementation slowed the decline in hearing in a population without folic acid fortification of food. Since Folic acid fortification of food was prohibited in the Netherlands during the study, baseline folate levels in participants were about half of those found in the U.S. population.

Bio-Design Folic 1000 provides 1 mg or 250% of the Daily Value of folate as folic acid per capsule. Take one capsule daily as a dietary supplement.