Folic Acid Can Mitigate Lead's Impact on Autism Risk During Pregnancy: Study Reveals - Video

New research gives another reason to take folic acid supplements while pregnant.

A new study by Simon Fraser University researchers has found that folate may weaken the link between blood-lead levels in pregnant women and autistic-like behaviours in their children.

Researchers from SFU’s Faculty of Health Sciences, led by PhD candidate Joshua Alampi, published the study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

“Folic acid supplementation during pregnancy has numerous benefits to child health, especially brain development,” says Alampi. “Our study suggests that adequate folic acid supplementation mitigates the neurotoxic effects of lead.”

The SFU-led study is the first to observe that adequate folic acid supplementation may reduce the risk between gestational lead exposure and autism. It found that associations between blood lead levels and autistic-like behaviours in toddlers were stronger among pregnant women with less than 0.4 milligrams per day of folic acid supplementation.

The team used data collected during 2008-2011 from 2,000 Canadian women enrolled in the Mother-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals study. The Mother-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals team measured blood-lead levels collected during first and third trimesters and surveyed participants to quantify their folic acid supplementation. Children born in this cohort study were assessed at ages three or four using the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), a common caregiver-reported tool that documents autistic-like behaviours in toddlers.

However, researchers also found that high folic acid supplementation > 1.0 milligram per day+ did not appear to have any extra benefit for mitigating the neurotoxic effects of lead exposure.

“The study’s finding aligns with Health Canada’s recommendation that all people who are pregnant, lactating, or could become pregnant, should take a daily multivitamin containing 0.4 milligrams of folic acid.”

Reference: Joshua D. Alampi, Bruce P. Lanphear, Amanda J. MacFarlane, Youssef Oulhote, Joseph M. Braun, Gina Muckle, Tye E. Arbuckle, Jillian Ashley-Martin, Janice M.Y. Hu, Aimin Chen, Lawrence C. McCandless, Combined Exposure to Folate and Lead during Pregnancy and Autistic-Like Behaviors among Canadian Children from the MIREC Pregnancy and Birth Cohort, 2024, Environmental Health Perspectives, 107003, 132, 10

doi:10.1289/EHP14479

https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/abs/10.1289/EHP14479