Among many deleterious effects of anticonvulsant drugs, depletion of serum folic acid levels is a major one. Serum folic acid levels in epileptic patients taking anticonvulsant drugs were measured in gender matched control subjects without anaemia and outpatients who were epileptic and taking anticonvulsant drugs. Mostly the drugs administered were enzyme inducers or non-enzyme inducers. Compared with the mean serum folic acid levels in control ( 7.73 +- 2.62 ng/ml: n=30 ), the mean serum folic acid levels in epileptic patients ( 5.74 +- 1.9 ng/ml: n=30 ),were significantly reduced. Findings also showed that reduced serum folic acid levels were significantly found (66.7 %) in anticonvulsant drug induced gingival enlargement patients. The study, though could not establish any relationship between subnormal folic acid levels with age, gender, dose, duration or types ( enzyme or non enzyme inducer ) drugs.
