Suplementação de ácido fólico na gestação e prevenção do autismo: uma revisão de literatura

Abstract

Austism Spectrum Disorder is a human development disorder in which it is estimated that in Brazil, with approximately 200 million inhabitants, there are approximately 2 million individuals on the autistic spectrum. In this sense, folic acid (FA) plays an essential role in both maternal health and the development of the fetal nervous system during pregnancy, so its supplementation is widely recommended for women in the pre-conception period and in the early stages of pregnancy, in order to ensure adequate levels of the substance, promoting the health of the mother and preventing possible complications in the development of the baby. Thus, the present study aims to identify the relationship between folic acid supplementation during pregnancy and the prevention of ASD in children. Thus, the following electronic databases were used: Public/Publisher Medline (PubMed), Scopus, Web of Science and Latin American and Caribbean Literature on Health Sciences (LILACS), with the following Health Sciences Descriptors (DeCS): “Folic Acid”, “Autism Spectrum Disorder” and “Supplementation during Pregnancy”. From the evaluation of the studies gathered, a sample of 47,900 children diagnosed with ASD or atypical development was obtained. The studies presented controversial results, so that evidence suggests that adequate FA supplementation in the periconceptional period contributed to a lower prevalence of autism in the offspring, while others found no causal relationship between FA and ASD. Furthermore, most studies did not detail the dose used by patients and have several limitations, such as variability in dosage, supplementation time, the moment of fetal development at which supplementation occurred (periconceptional, pregnancy, lactation), lifestyle habits, condition and psychosocial and economic well-being of patients. Therefore, given the various divergences in the findings, there is a need for further studies to establish a possible relationship between FA supplementation and the prevention of ASD. However, there is a consensus that FA has a preventive role for other disorders of the nervous system, especially when used before conception and in the first weeks of pregnancy.