What Are the Health Benefits of Folic Acid ?
Here you can learn about the health benefits of folic acid, folate or vitamin B9. How to take and how much are important, please read carefully.
Folic Acid – A Must Have
It is one of the essential vitamins, meaning that the body must have it to function, but cannot produce it. If it is not present in the foods that we eat, serious health problems will ensue.
Folate & Pregnancy
Pregnant women and those that could become pregnant are advised to take a supplement, because low intake during the very early stages of pregnancy could cause birth defects like spina bifida. The defects are known as neural tube defects and are still the most common ones, even in industrialized societies. In neural tube defects, there is an abnormal opening in the brain or spinal cord. The result can be paralysis, brain damage or stillbirth.
Vitamin B9 & Red Blood Cells
Children and adults require the nutrient to produce red blood cells. Low intake of the nutrient on a continuous basis may not result in an obvious deficiency, but could lead to the development of cancer, because the nutrient is necessary for the production and maintenance of all of the cells of the body.
Folate Deficiency & Heart Disease
The health benefits of folic acid supplementation may be numerous. Folate deficiency increases a person’s risk of heart disease and stroke. The incidence of ischemic heart disease and stroke in the US has reduced by 15%, since food manufacturers were required to fortify breads and cereals with the nutrient.
Sources of Folic Acid
The best source of the nutrient is actually dark leafy greens. Beans and peas are also a good source. Other fruits and vegetables provide a significant amount. So, it is not that the nutrient occurs in few foods. It is that people’s dietary preferences have them eating more breads and cereals. Thus fortification was believed to be important and seems to be effective.
Depression, Obesity, Type II Diabetes
Other health benefits of folic acid supplementation have to do with depression and obesity. There are several studies indicating that the supplements are beneficial in treating depression and may have a role in the prevention of obesity and type II diabetes.
Folic Acid – How to Take & How Much
Another study concerned memory and mental agility in older people. Verbal fluency and short term memory was found to be better in people taking a supplement. But, simply meeting your minimum daily requirements for the nutrient will not provide that benefit. Twice the current RDA was given to the participants in the study.
Although there may be many health benefits of folic acid supplementation, it is important to take other B vitamins and nutrients along with it. A single-ingredient supplement could interfere with the absorption of B12 and other nutrients.
It always makes more sense to take a well-designed multi-nutritional formula, even if you feel that you are eating a balanced diet and getting most of the essential nutrients through the foods that you eat. For one thing, the minimum recommended daily allowances may provide only minimally good health, as exemplified by the study concerning memory in the elderly.
What you have read about here are just a few of the health benefits of folic acid. There are others that you might be interested in.
10 Facts About Folic Acid
- This Brochure is also availiable as a Portable document format (PDF, 19KB, 1pg.)
- Each year, about 130 babies who are born in New York State have neural tube defects (NTD). Nationwide, there are 4,000 NTD-affected pregnancies each year. NTDs are disorders of the development of the brain and spinal cord. The most common NTD is spina bifida, or opening of the spine. The most serious NTD is anencephaly, failure of the brain to develop.
- Up to 70 percent of NTDs can be prevented if all women who can become pregnant consume 0.4 mg/day of folic acid at least a month prior to conception and during the first trimester of pregnancy.
- Folic acid is a B vitamin that is used by the body to manufacture DNA. DNA is required for rapid cell division and organ/tissue formation in the developing baby.
- Folic acid can only help prevent NTDs during the first weeks of pregnancy, usually before a woman even knows she’s pregnant. In fact, since 50 percent of pregnancies are unplanned, all women who are sexually active and of child-bearing age should consume folic acid every day, even between pregnancies.
- Two-thirds of women in the United States report consuming insufficient levels of folic acid. There are three ways women can get enough folic acid: Take a vitamin supplement containing 0.4 mg folic acid daily. Eat a fortified breakfast cereal daily which contains 100% of the recommended daily amount of folic acid. Increase consumption of foods fortified with folic acid.
- Folic acid-rich foods include: fortified breakfast cereals; enriched bread, rice, pasta and other grain products; orange juice; green vegetables; and legumes such as navy beans, kidney beans, lentils and garbanzo beans. A large glass of orange juice and a bowl of fortified cereal will provide 50-100% of the recommended daily amount of folic acid.
- A woman who has had prior NTD-affected pregnancy is at the highest risk for recurrence and should see a physician before planning another pregnancy. Her physicians will prescribe a higher dosage of folic acid (4 mg).
- Also at risk are women who have maternal insulin-dependent diabetes; use anti-seizure medication; have diagnosed obesity; were exposed to high temperatures in early pregnancy (i.e., prolonged high fevers and hot-tub use); are white or Hispanic; and are poor.
- Other potential health benefits of folic acid intake at 0.4 mg/day include reducing risks related to heart disease, stroke and some kinds of cancer.
- Women should keep their folic acid intake to less than 1 mg per day, unless under the supervision of a physician. High doses of folic acid may complicate the diagnosis of vitamin B12 deficiency.
Decrease risk of birth defects :-
Adequate folic acid intake is essential for pregnant women to protect their infants against miscarriage and neural tube defects. Recent research has also shown that a father’s folate status before conception may be just as important.
Lower risk of depression :-
Folate may help ward off depression by preventing an excess of homocysteine from forming in the body, which can block blood and other nutrients from reaching the brain. Excess homocysteine interferes with the production of the feel-good hormones serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, which regulate not only mood, but sleep and appetite as well.4
Preventing cancer :-
Low levels of folate intake have been shown to increase the risk of breast cancer in women. Adequate intake of dietary folate (in food) has also shown promise in protecting against colon, stomach, pancreatic and cervicalcancers. Although the mechanism of protection is currently unknown, researchers believe that folate’s protective effects have something to do with its role in DNA and RNA production and the prevention of unwanted mutations.