Folate and Vitamin B12 Status in a Healthy Elderly Population

Abstract

Folic acid and vitamin B₁₂ nutritional status was examined in a group of 270 healthy elderly individuals using both dietary and biochemical measures. Of these 40 per cent had dietary intakes of folic acid that were less than half the recommended dietary allowance of 400 μg/day, and 13 per cent had intakes of less than half the recommended dietary allowance for vitamin B₁₂ (3 μg/day). However, only 8 per cent had low plasma folates (12 deficiency, and mean corpuscular volumes were not significantly greater than those for the entire population (90.8 ± 4.1 fl). The correlations of intakes of folic acid and vitamin B₁₂ with plasma or erythrocyte levels were moderate (about 0.5). It was also clear that those taking supplements had significantly greater blood levels than those not taking supplements, although the benefit of higher plasma or erythrocyte levels of these nutrients is not clear. The data indicate that folate and vitamin B₁₂ status in free-living healthy elderly is not a major medical problem.