CRN challenges folic acid/lung cancer link

NEW YORK For all the good that associations like the Council for Responsible Nutrition and the Natural Products Association have done in rooting any discussion around supplements in sound science, there always seems to be these somewhat faulty meta-analyses that serve as an undercurrent to that sound science.

There have been numerous studies supporting the use of folic acid in the prevention of certain birth defects. There also have been numerous studies establishing a link between smoking and lung cancer. So it’s not necessarily reasonable to draw the conclusion that folic acid may increase lung cancer risk without excluding known lung-cancer risks from that analysis. It may even border on irresponsible, in effect scaring mongering consumers away from a supplement that may, in fact, be a benefit.

Make no mistake, the people at CRN and NPA are very much into vetting the supplement industry as a responsible group interested in marketing products that improve America’s health through science. Both groups actively have worked toward implementing supplement-specific Good Manufacturing Practices and including supplements, along with over-the-counter medicines, in the FDA mandate on serious adverse event reports.

So it would be reasonable to conclude, that if there were a possible scientifically proven link between any dietary supplement and an increased health risk, groups like CRN and NPA would support appropriate actions to curb those risks.