Folic acid gets its name from the Latin word folium meaning "leaf." Perhaps it is no coincidence that this essential nutrient is found in leafy vegetables such as lettuce, spinach, turnips and other greens. Actually, this nutrient is really just the water-soluble form of Vitamin B9 masquerading around as Folic acid or Folacin.

The production of folic acid and its arrival to the prestigious list of essential vitamins didn't come until 1945 when Dr. Yellapragada Subbarao and others synthesized it thanks to work done at the American Cyanamid Company two years prior. However, the health benefits of the substance were discovered much earlier. In 1931, researcher Lucy Wills showed that anemia during pregnancy could be prevented with brewer's yeast due to its high content of folate (the naturally occurring form of Folacin). Since then, folic acid has been used regularly to prevent anemia. The substance has been deemed especially important during periods of rapid cell division and growth. The healthy production of red blood cells, in both adults and children, can be partly attributed to folic acid.

In addition, the amount of folic acid intake directly before and after a woman becomes pregnant (the preiconceptional period) is extremely important for reducing a number of congenital defects - most notably neural tube defects which lead to malformations of the spine (spina bifida), brain (anencephaly) and skull. Further research supports the theses that a regimen of about 400 mcg of folic acid a day can fight against other maladies such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, depression, macular degeneration, mental deterioration and infertility. More recent discoveries suggest that the health benefits of folic acid are hardly limited to those mentioned above.

According to a 2005 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Folic acid supplements not only help prevent anemia, but they can also protect the pregnant women against high blood pressure.

In 2007, the results of a study conducted by Allen Wilcox of North Carolina's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences were published in by the British Medical Journal. The study professes that folic acid, in addition to its well-known effects, can also prevent the formation of cleft lips and palates. The condition, caused by the incorrect joining of tissues around the roof of the mouth and the upper lip, afflicts one in every 1,000 babies born in the U.K. Cleft lips and palates often require surgery and undoubtedly create social problems for the affected children. Perhaps a combination of folate-rich diets, multivitamins and daily folic acid supplements can greatly reduce the number of cases. After doing the math, researchers found that folic acid helped diminish the risk of cleft palates by 40 percent - not too shabby.

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