Researchers reported that 2mg of folic acid (vitamin B9), a supplement most often used to prevent neural tube defects, and 1mg of vitamin B12 per day failed to show any reduction in the primary outcome of major vascular events (MVE) compared to placebo. MVE is defined as non-fatal heart attack, coronary death, stroke or arterial revascularization.
However, the vitamins also did not increase non-vascular death rates or cancer rates during an average follow-up of 6.7 years among patients who had previously had a heart attack, said Professor Jane M. Armitage, co-principal investigator of the study and professor of clinical trials and epidemiology at the University of Oxford, England.