A new study has suggested Indian women add folate and vitamin B12 to tea to counter the high levels of anemia and neural tube defects. Published in the online journal BMJ Nutrition Prevention and Health, the study divided 43 young women from Maharashtra into three groups. They were asked to use teabags laced with therapeutic doses of 1 mg folate plus one group took 0.1 vitamin B12, another took 0.5 mg, and the third group used unfortified teabags in their daily cuppa for two months.
Their serum vitamin and haemoglobin levels were compared at the beginning and end of the study period. Most women had anemia with low to normal serum folate and below-normal serum vitamin B12 levels at the start of the study. After 2 months, there were significant average increases in serum folate levels of 8.37 ng/ml and 6.69 ng/ml in groups 1 and 2, respectively, compared with a rise of 1.26 ng/ml among the women in group 0. Serum vitamin B12 levels rose to more than 300 pg/ml in more than half of the women in group 1 and in two-thirds of those in group 2. Average haemoglobin levels also rose by 1.45 g/dl in group 1 and by 0.79 g/dl in group 2.
It was therefore found that a single daily cup might provide an ideal vehicle for fortification with these water-soluble vitamins. Study authors pointed out that this was a feasibility study, involving small numbers of participants, so large comparative studies would be needed before any firm conclusions could be drawn. They, however, suggested that fortified tea could potentially be used in India for all those with either borderline or low folate, and as a lower dose to ensure those on a nutritionally poor diet can still get these two nutrients every day.
They concluded, “Tea is an outstanding scalable vehicle for fortification with folate and vitamin B12 in India, and has the potential to help eliminate haematological and neurological complications arising from inadequate dietary consumption or absorption of folate and vitamin B12.”
