Estimated folate intakes: data updated to reflect food fortification, increased bioavailability, and dietary supplement use

Background: There is a critical need to estimate dietary folate intakes for nutrition monitoring and food safety evaluations, but available intake dat a are seriously limited by several factors. Objective: Our objective was to update 2 national food consumption surveys to reflect folate intakes as a result of the recently initiated food fortif ication program and to correct folate intakes for the apparently higher bio availability of synthetic folic acid (SFA; ie, folate added to foods or fro m dietary supplements) than of naturally occurring folate so as to express intakes as dietary folate equivalents. Design: It was not possible to chemically analyze foods, so adjustments wer e made to food-composition data by using information about food ingredients and characteristics. Total folate intakes were estimated for several sex a nd age groups by using the modified data coupled with dietary supplement us e. Results: Within the limitations of the data, our findings suggested that 67 -95% of the population met or surpassed the new estimated average requireme nt, depending on the sex and age group and survey. Nonetheless, some subgro ups had estimated intakes below these standards. Estimated SFA intakes sugg ested that approximate to 15-25% of children aged 1-8 y, depending on the s urvey, had intakes above the newly established tolerable upper intake level . We estimated that 68-87% of females of childbearing age had SFA intakes b elow the recommended intake of 400 mu g/d, depending on the age group and s urvey. Conclusion: There is a need to explore ways to improve folate intakes in ta rgeted subgroups, including females of childbearing age, while not putting other population groups at risk of excessive intakes.