Hypertensive people who supplement with folate can lengthen their life expectancy

A series of studies known as the China Stroke Primary Prevention Trial revealed that folate supplementation causes significant improvements in the mortality of hypertensive patients. This finding, published in the Journal of Hypertension, was based on the results of separate clinical trials.

• Patients who suffer from renal dysfunction have a higher risk of cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. Important factors that can contribute to the outcome of this disease include a low glomerular filtration rate, high albumin excretion rate, elevated homocysteine levels, and low folate content.
• Folate, which is also called vitamin B9, and homocysteine levels are indirectly proportional with each other since
• Although the body needs folate, it is unable to synthesize this nutrient, so it just depends on dietary intake. However, there are many countries, especially in Asia, where people do not get the necessary amounts of vitamin B9.
• In the first study of the series, the researchers conducted a prospective, double-blind, randomized trial involving 20,702 people who had hypertension but without prior cases of stroke or other cardiovascular diseases. They were given folate supplement for 4.5 years and afterward, they were observed to have a 21 percent reduction in incident stroke.
• The succeeding study focused on the effects of the hypertensive medication enalapril and folate on all-cause mortality of patients with irregular glomerular filtration rate and urine protein excretion. After 4.5 years, the researchers observed that vitamin B9 supplementation reduced all-cause mortality in patients that excreted high amounts of protein in their urine, but it didn’t affect the mortality of those with high filtration rate.

Overall, the results of these studies prove folate supplementation significantly reduces the incidence of stroke and the mortality risk of hypertensive patients with renal dysfunction in the form of excessive protein excretion in the urine.

Read the full text of the study at this link.

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Journal Reference:

Kahan T, Spaak J. POTENTIAL OF FOLATE SUPPLEMENTATION TO REDUCE MORTALITY IN HYPERTENSIVE PATIENTS. Journal of Hypertension. June 2017;35(6). DOI:10.1097/hjh.0000000000001352