The authors, from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, suspected that folates and folic acid could protect against some types of cancer, given that these substances collaborate in the DNA repair system.
They examined data from 295 women who had participated in a large breast cancer screening study in the 1980s, and observed that those who reported consuming more than 367 micrograms of folates per day had a lower risk of developing colorectal cancer.
American recommendations put the amount of folate that should be ingested each day at 400 micrograms.
Folates are found in different foods, such as vegetables, legumes, orange juice and liver. Its synthetic form, folic acid, is used to enrich cereals and is administered to pregnant women - before conception and in the first weeks of pregnancy - to prevent neural tube defects in the fetus.
