Periconceptional dietary intake of myo-inositol and neural tube defects in offspring.
BACKGROUND
Periconceptional intake of nutrients in addition to folic acid may contribute to neural tube defect (NTD) etiologies; a likely candidate is myo-inositol. We investigated whether maternal periconceptional dietary intake of myo-inositol influenced NTD risk.


METHODS
Data were derived from a case-control study of fetuses and infants with NTDs among 1989-1991 California births. Interviews were conducted with mothers of 454 NTD cases and with mothers of 462 nonmalformed controls. A standard 100-item food frequency questionnaire was used to assess nutrient intake.


RESULTS
We observed small increases in risk, with increases slightly more evident for anencephaly, associated with intakes of myo-inositol less than the highest intake quartile, e.g., risk of anencephaly was 1.3 (0.7-2.4) among fetuses whose mothers consumed lowest versus highest intakes of myo-inositol. These small increases, however, were imprecise, and also did not indicate increasing risk with decreasing level of myo-inositol intake. Adjusted risk estimates did not differ considerably from their unadjusted counterparts.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results do not indicate that myo-inositol intake, as measured in this study, is strongly associated with risk of human NTDs.
Shaw
Gary M
GM
March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, California Birth Defects Monitoring Program, 1917 Fifth St., Berkeley, CA 94710, USA. gsh@cbdmp.org
Carmichael
Suzan L
SL
Yang
Wei
W
Schaffer
Donna M
DM
D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007294:Inositol / Q000009:adverse effects*; D018811:Maternal Exposure; D009436:Neural Tube Defects / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects; D012307:Risk Factors
D007294:Inositol