Research paper
Randomized clinical trial of folate supplementation in patients with peripheral arterial disease
Study answer
What this study found
Folate supplementation lowered plasma total homocysteine and produced a modest improvement in arterial function versus placebo, with no significant effect on inflammatory markers. Compared with placebo, total homocysteine fell by -2.12 (-3.70, -0.75) with folic acid (P = 0.002) and -2.07 (-3.48, -0.54) with 5-MTHF (P = 0.007); ABPI improved by 0.07 (0.04, 0.11) and 0.05 (0.01, 0.10), respectively. Pulse wave velocity also improved, especially with 5-MTHF: bk-PWV -0.90 (-2.10, 0.00) m/s (P = 0.051) for folic acid and -1.10 (-2.20, -0.20) m/s (P = 0.011) for 5-MTHF; ba-PWV -0.60 (-0.86, 0.00)…
- Study & population
- Randomized controlled trial in adults with peripheral arterial disease and intermittent claudication, aged 45-85 years, recruited from vascular clinics in England.
- Intervention
- Two oral folate regimens were tested for 16 weeks: folic acid 400 µg/day and 5-MTHF 400 µg/day, each given as a daily capsule.
- Key limitation
- The trial was relatively small and short (16 weeks), which limits detection of longer-term clinical effects.
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Open PDFOriginal abstract
The aim was to determine whether folate supplementation improved arterial function in patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD).