The Department of Health and Social Care and Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs today announced folic acid will be added to non-wholemeal flour from 2026 to protect newborn babies from serious brain and spine problems.

The Food and Nutrition National Bioscience Research Infrastructure (F&N NBRI) based at the Quadram Institute maintain and update the national food composition database.

Food Policy Research Scientist Dr Laura Bardon from the F&N NBRI team said, “This is a big win for public health in the UK. This is a hugely positive step and is expected to prevent around 200 cases of neural tube defects each year.  In order to measure the real-life dietary impact of this new legislation we will need updated national composition data to reflect these new formulations.”

Neural tube defects (NTDs) are abnormalities that occur in the brain, spinal cord or spine of a developing foetus. NTD’s have huge human and financial costs for both the babies affected and their families. NTDs occur in the early weeks of pregnancy as the neural tube, which forms the spine and brain of the baby develops.

Folic acid is an important nutrient in this process which reduces the risk of NTDs. All women of childbearing age are recommended to take a folic acid supplement of 400µg/day even if they are not planning a pregnancy due to the high number of unplanned pregnancies.

The decision to fortify with folic acid comes after many years of campaigning by those in public health and 3 reviews (2006, 2009, 2017) of the evidence for its benefits as well as potential risks by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), who have continuously recommended the measure.

Whilst the link between folic acid intakes and reduced NTD risk has been established since the 1990s, previous efforts to implement folic acid legislation have been hampered by a number of concerns over adverse effects. These included the possible masking of vitamin B12 deficiency particularly in older adults which could lead to irreversible neurological damage. Yet the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition reviewed the evidence in 2017 and concluded there is no adverse risk observed with consuming up to 1mg/day of folic acid.

The UK’s national food composition database, CoFID, is maintained and updated by our Food and Nutrition-NBRI team. The data are freely available and widely used by researchers, policy makers, regulators, and food and health professionals alike to understand the relationships between diet and health.

Dr Maria Traka, Head of the Food and Nutrition team said, “Maintaining up to date food composition data is essential to monitor the impact of fortification legislation like this one. The team will be looking forward to engaging with government and industry alike to support these updates.”

Prof Martin Warren said,  “This is very welcome news but we believe there is also a case for also adding Vitamin B12, given they both acts on some of the same processes and both are vitally important for neurological and cognitive development”