In one of the favorite movies from my youth called Me and the Colonel, Danny Kaye played a Jewish refugee called Jakubowski who kept screwing up the plans and getting under the skin of a Nazi Colonel, played by Hollywood’s all-purpose German, Curt Jergens. I can’t remember much from that movie any longer (hey! I’m in middle-age so I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast today, or if I even had breakfast) but I can remember the heart-warming ending in which the Colonel, having recognized that Jakubowski had helped him out of a major jam, smiled broadly and said, “More and more I like this Jakubowski.”

Well, that’s how I feel about folic acid, too. I used to advise strongly against taking all vitamin supplements, but the more I learn about folic acid, a seemingly all-purpose vitamin, the more I have to admit that, “More and more I like this folic acid.”

For a start, we’ve known for several years now that extra doses of folic acid taken daily during pregnancy can significantly reduce the risk of certain potentially horrible fetal abnormalities such as spina bifida (a hole in the spinal canal that may lead to paralysis) and anencephaly (absence of the brain), on top of which folic acid may also reduce the risk of other fetal abnormalities to the heart and kidney.

Thus, all women of childbearing years should be taking extra doses of folic acid, and the reason they should be taking it all the time, and not just start on it when they learn they’re pregnant, is simply that folic acid works best from the moment of conception on. That is, it may be too late if you wait to start taking folic acid till your pregnancy is diagnosed definitively, which is at least a couple of weeks after the conception. And since 50% of pregnancies are a surprise (only to the mom, of course; 100% of pregnancies are a surprise to the dad), women who can conceive should be taking folic acid prophylactically all the time.

But folic acid is also very helpful to a lot of other people besides young women. There are lots of accumulating evidence that a product of protein breakdown called homocysteine plays a role in several serious health risks, including heart disease, strokes, and Alzheimer’s disease. Many studies have now linked higher levels of homocysteine to all those (and other) health problems. For example, a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that the higher the homocysteine level in a group of elderly Italians, the poorer their thinking capacities, and the higher their eventual risk of dementia.

Well, the great news is that homocysteine levels are lowered dramatically with folic acid (as well as with vitamin B12 and vitamin B6), so anyone at high risk for these conditions (probably a large majority of us) should probably consider taking extra doses of folic acid, although as always, you should discuss this with your doctor first.

So that’s some good stuff about folic acid, but as I said, “More and more I like this folic acid,” so let me tell you about another potential benefit from this vitamin. You see, alcohol increases the risk of breast cancer in women, and there is really no known safe level of alcohol intake in terms of that risk. In fact, a study from Oxford researchers concluded that the risk of breast cancer goes up about 6% with every glass of wine consumed on a daily basis.

The trouble with that rather depressing conclusion is that a glass or 2 of wine everyday is also a good way to lower the risks of heart attack, stroke, and a host of other health problems, so it would be lovely to find a way to counteract the negative aspect to drinking wine to allow more women to get the heart health benefits, and this is where folic acid can help.

In a study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute researchers determined that high intake of folic acid reduces the risk of breast cancer, especially from the added risk of drinking alcohol regularly. In this study, in women who regularly consumed at least one glass of alcohol a day, those with the highest levels of folate in their blood were the least likely to eventually develop breast cancer, while women with the lowest levels were most likely to get this malignancy.

Now, clearly the best way to get folic acid is through diet: green, leafy veggies, fortified cereals and breads, beans, peas, some fruits, and so on. But unless you’re very determined, it seems to me that it just isn’t very easy to get enough folic acid from food, so this is one vitamin that you should seriously consider taking in the form of supplements.

Before you all rush off to empty the store shelves of folic acid purely on my advice, though, a couple of words of caution.

First, as I said, always run such plans by your doctor first.

Second, and more important, you should know that there is no study yet that has shown that taking extra folic acid actually lowers the risk of getting any of the problems we’ve discussed (with the exception of birth defects, which are very clearly significantly lowered by taking folic acid supplements). So, for example, no study has yet shown that taking folic acid supplements to lower homocysteine levels has resulted in a reduced risk of heart attack and stroke, even though it makes sense that that should happen.

That said, the potential downside of such a regime is low and the potential upside is quite high, so lots of you should consider taking this vitamin for your health.