SynthesisPloS one2016
New Perspective on Impact of Folic Acid Supplementation during Pregnancy on Neurodevelopment/Autism in the Offspring Children - A Systematic Review.
Synthesis in PloS one, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 60 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
60 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 138 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Maternal Dietary Factors and the Risk of Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review of Existing Evidence.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2020Pooled it
- Thyroid hormone and folinic acid in young children with Down syndrome: the phase 3 ACTHYF trial.Genetics in medicine : official journal of the American College of Medical Genetics · 2020Trial
- MaternalGenes · 2026Article
- A new perspective on the association between maternal folic acid supplementation across the perinatal period and cognitive and behavioral outcomes in children at age 4: findings from the MABC birth cohort study.European journal of nutrition · 2025Article
- Maternal Psychological Distress Before and After Childbirth and Neurodevelopmental Delay in Toddlers.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Gestational Diabetes and Obesity: Immediate and Late Sequelae for Offspring.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Uncovering the hidden hunger in translational research for periconceptional folic acid awareness among health care providers.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2025Article
- Effect of folic acid diet on the behavior of female mice and ultrasonic vocalization of their F1 offspring.IBRO neuroscience reports · 2025Article
- Nutritional management and autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review.World journal of clinical pediatrics · 2024Article
- Fluorescent primers amplification refractory mutation system qPCR (FP ARMS-qPCR) for MTHFR C677T SNP genotyping.Molecular biology reports · 2024Article
- Macronutrient and Micronutrient Intake Among US Women Aged 20 to 44 Years.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- Pregnancy Planning and its Association with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Findings from the Study to Explore Early Development.Maternal and child health journal · 2024Article
- Influence of maternal folate depletion on Art3 DNA methylation in the murine adult brain; potential consequences for brain and neurocognitive health.Mutagenesis · 2024Article
- Priority nutrients to address malnutrition and diet-related diseases in Australia and New Zealand.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Article
- The function of chemical folic acid in calibration methods and neurodevelopmental disorders.Frontiers in chemistry · 2024Review
- Prenatal folic acid supplement/dietary folate and cognitive development in 4-year-old offspring from the Japan Environment and Children's Study.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- The influence of early environment and micronutrient availability on developmental epigenetic programming: lessons from the placenta.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2023Review
- Folate - a scoping review for Nordic Nutrition Recommendations 2023.Food & nutrition research · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 8 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
It has been conclusively established that folic acid supplementation prior to and during early pregnancy (up to 12 weeks of gestation) can prevent neural tube defects (NTDs). We hypothesized that folate effects may extend from neuro-structural defects to alterations in neuro-behavioural and emotional skills including autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and other developmental disorders. The objective of this review was to comprehensively evaluate evidence on the impact of folic acid on neurodevelopment other than NTDs. We conducted an online search of relevant literature compiled by the National Library of Medicine from Medline and EMBASE (searched on Dec 31, 2014: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query/fcgi and http://www.elsevier.com/online-tools/embase). We first created 3 files (search restricted to English literature) using the following key words: 1) folate or folic acid (171322 papers identified by this search); 2) maternal or pregnancy or pregnant or gestation or gestational or prenatal or antenatal or periconception or periconceptional (1349219 papers identified by this search); and 3) autism or autism spectrum disorders or developmental delay or development or neurodevelopment or mental or cognitive or language or personal-social or gross motor or fine motor or behaviour or intellectual or intelligence or Bayley Scale (8268145 papers identified by this search). We then merged the 3 files and reviewed the papers that addressed these three issues simultaneously. A total of 22 original papers that examined the association between folic acid supplementation in human pregnancy and neurodevelopment/autism were identified after the screening, with 15 studies showing a beneficial effect of folic acid supplementation on neurodevelopment/autism, 6 studies showed no statistically significant difference, while one study showed a harmful effect in > 5 mg folic acid supplementation/day during pregnancy. Folic acid supplementation in pregnancy may have beneficial effects on the neurodevelopment of children beyond its proven effect on NTDs.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.