(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A new Japanese study shows folic acid and vitamin B12
are safe and effective in reducing the risk of hip fracture in older patients
after having a stroke.
Study authors explain stroke patients have a two- to four-times greater risk
of hip fracture than their healthy peers. They believe this might be due to
higher levels of plasma homocysteine in stroke patients, which may be associated
with osteoporosis and risk of hip fracture. They set out to determine if folic
acid and vitamin B12 decrease homocysteine levels.
Yoshihiro Sato, M.D., from the Mitate Hospital in Japan, and colleagues
studied 314 stroke patients who received five milligrams of folate and 1,500
micrograms of B12 and 314 patients who received placebo. Over the two-year
follow-up, there were eight fractures in the treatment group and 32 in the
placebo group. In addition, patients taking folate and B12 experienced a
38-percent decrease in their plasma homocysteine levels whereas participants in
the control group had their levels increase by 31 percent.
Researchers conclude that treatment with folate and vitamin B12 was effective
in reducing the risk of post-stroke fractures. An accompanying editorial raises
the point of whether a similar effect could be seen in other high fracture-risk
patients and says this can only be answered with further study.
SOURCE: The Journal of the American Medical Association,
2005;293:1082-1088
