400 mcg for healthy adult men and women, 600 mcg for pregnant women, and 500 mcg for
women who are nursing. Taking folate supplements before becoming pregnant and through
the first two months of pregnancy reduces the risk of cleft palate; taking folate through the
entire pregnancy reduces the risk of neural tube defects.
Lower risk of heart attack. In the spring of 1998, an analysis of data from the records for more
than 80,000 women enrolled in the long-running Nurses’ Health Study at Harvard School of
Public Health/Brigham and Woman’s Hospital, in Boston, demonstrated that a diet providing
more than 400 mcg folate and 3 mg vitamin B 6 daily, from either food or supplements, more
than twice the current RDA for each, may reduce a woman’s risk of heart attack by almost 50
percent. Although men were not included in the analysis, the results are assumed to apply to
them as well.
However, data from a meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association in December 2006 called this theory into question. Researchers at Tulane Univer-
sity examined the results of 12 controlled studies in which 16,958 patients with preexisting
cardiovascular disease were given either folic acid supplements or placebos (“look-alike” pills
with no folic acid) for at least six months. The scientists, who found no reduction in the risk
of further heart disease or overall death rates among those taking folic acid, concluded that
further studies will be required to verify whether taking folic acid supplements reduces the
risk of cardiovascular disease.
Adverse Effects Associated with This Food
Odorous urine. After eating asparagus, we all excrete the sulfur compound methyl mercap-
tan, a smelly waste product, in our urine.
Food/Drug Interactions
Anticoagulants. Asparagus is high in vitamin K, a vitamin manufactured naturally by bac-
teria in our intestines, an adequate supply of which enables blood to clot normally. Eating
foods that contain this vitamin may interfere with the effectiveness of anticoagulants such
as heparin and warfarin (Coumadin, Dicumarol, Panwarfin) whose job is to thin blood and
dissolve clots.
Asparagus