Folic acid is one of the B-complex vitamins.

Folic acid, long unheralded even by health food enthusiasts, is now in the nutritional limelight. A series of recent studies suggest that this B vitamin may be a major player in warding off heart attacks, strokes, and certain common cancers. Often called folacin or folate (its biologically active form), it also is well established as critically important in the prevention of birth defects of the brain and spinal cord, called neural tube defects, if...