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Adding folic acid to bread could help cut the number of babies born with heart defects. There was a six per cent drop in the number of babies born with severe congenital heart problems after it became compulsory in Canada to fortify bread and pasta products with folic acid - also known as vitamin B9. And the results may have been underestimated because other factors known to cause heart problems - such as obesity - increased during the study from 1990 to 2005. `These findings support the hypothesis that folic acid has a preventive effect on heart defects,' researchers told the British Medical Journal.