Researchers at the University of Aberdeen Medical School, published their study (involving 368 men and women aged 65 to 74 ) in the Quarterly Journal of Medicine. The study showed that folic acid helps reduce the level of homocysteine, amino-acid, which can lead to vascular disease and are calling for folate to be put into bread and breakfast cereals to ensure the elderly get all they need. Alternatively taking it in tablet form would cost £10 a year per person.

Professor Michael Golden who led the research said: ‘ The elderly bear the brunt of cardio-vascular problems. If public policy decisions safely raise the folate intake substantially, these results suggest we could save lots of lives, improve health and quality of life of many people and save the health service an awful lot of money’.

Officials in Scotland are also investigating an idea to add vitamin thiamin (Vitamin B1) into beer as it might reduce alcohol-related health problems such as brain damage. A reason behind the proposal is to help heavy drinkers who are more likely to suffer from a deficiency of thiamin due to poor diet. A spokeswoman for the Scottish Executive said: "If adding this vitamin can reduce the suffering of chronically ill people then the executive has a responsibility to consider doing all it can to help". She also said they backed moves to put extra information on the drinks labels outlining how many units were contained in the products.

"We have asked advisers to look at scientific evidence of putting the vitamin into alcohol and to see what, if any, benefits it would bring," she said. "We will wait and see what evidence we receive before deciding what action to take." The move has been outlined in an executive document entitled ‘Plan for Action’, which has been backed by more than £1m of public funds. The spokeswoman also said the plans were not meant as "anti-alcohol" legislation but could be one of the next steps taken by the executive to improve alcohol awareness.