Sign up for a Google alert on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and you get a lot of junk e-mail. FAS seems to be a favorite term for spam bloggers, of which there are many. So many, in fact, that many times I delete the alert on FAS without even reading it.

But when I do, I run the risk of missing key information for parents of children adopted from Russia, because of their concern about FAS in that country. If I had hit the delete key too fast this week I would have missed the research behind the post I put up earlier this week on how doctors are using three-dimensional laser images to spot signs of FAS. And I would have missed this press release from a Canadian health center that indicates that folic acid may have a role to play in undoing some of alcohol's damage.

Folic acid. Gool 'ol vitamin B9. The reason why your mom browbeat you into eating your spinach and peas.

The Canadian study found that formic acid, which is a byproduct of methanol, is a contaminant found in many alcoholic beverages. It has a poisoning effect that changes the way a person's nervous system works and it is found in greater amounts in alcoholics. And while the Canadian study did not focus on Russia, I've reported before that the drinking of hazardous alcohol is a problem in Russia.

But the study by Dr. Bhushan Kapur Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Dr. Peter Carlen of the Toronto Western Division of the University Health Network, both in Toronto, found that folic acid can blunt the impact of formic acid.

"Our studies suggest that formic acid may indeed be the mechanism for many alcohol-related diseases, such as liver disease and central nervous system disorders," said Dr. Kapur in a prepared statement. "Because the neurotoxicity of formic acid can be greatly slowed by administering folic acid, which is inexpensive and readily available, the public health impact is staggering in terms of treating alcohol abusers and possibly preventing the serious affects of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome."

A lot more work needs to be done on this research, which was supported by a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. But just as with the study on cholesterol's potential as a FAS-fighting tool that I told you about early this year, this work is one more step in finding a way to make pre-natal exposure to alcohol less of a life-long impediment.

Image credit: designervoodoo, Morguefile.com