Serum Folate Values in 423 Psychiatric Patients

Abstract

Serum folate estimations were carried out on 423 psychiatric inpatients, consecutive admissions to a general hospital and a mental hospital unit and 62 normal controls. Serum vitamin B12estimations were also done on 368 of the patients. Though patients and controls did not differ on mean serum folate, there were significantly more patients with values below 2 m/xg./ml. (“low folate”) than controls. Patients with epilepsy, organic psychoses, and endogenous depression had significantly lower mean serum folate, and chronic alcoholics significantly higher mean serum folate, than the controls; the former conditions also predominated among patients with low folate, a diagnostic pattern significantly at variance from that of patients with normal folate values and those with serum B12>150 /x/xg./ml. Low folate patients had more haematological- abnormalities, including low serum B12, than other patients; 75.2% had received drugs during the three weeks before admission, 22.9% showed evidence of malnutrition, 17% were physically ill, and 44.2% had been continuously ill for more than three years. © 1967, British Medical Journal Publishing Group. All rights reserved.