This is Dr. Jason West and we're going to talk about folic acid. Is it healthy
for you? How much you need, what can be the complications associated with it.
It's really important for your nerve health and also for your detox
mechanisms. A lot of great information in the video, here it is.
Hello everyone,
this is Dr. West. We're going to talk about folic acid, is it safe for your body, what is
folic acid, is it part of the B vitamin family and how does folic acid help you
to be healthy and after watching the value, you'll understand why folic acid
is essential, how to get folic acid from your diet and the incredible benefits of
folic acid. Now I counted about nine incredible benefits of folic acid.
Folic acid is part of the B complex vitamins, it's vital for red blood cells and for
many other cells in the body. The form of folic acid occurs naturally in foods is
called folate and the functions of folic acid, along with vitamin b12, is
important for the formation of red blood cells and lack of these two vital
nutrients leads to a variety of anemia called macrocytic anemia. This means that
the red blood cells appear bloated and they're too large, they have a reduced
capacity to carry oxygen. It's a really frequent cause of feeling fatigued and
wore out and not having enough energy and folate, along with other B vitamins,
are vital for nerve function. Folate is essential for the formation of DNA
within everybody cell and this allows the normal replication of cells.
Folate acts as chemicals that medicate one carbon transfer reactions. These are
important for the formation of amino acids of purines and pyrimidines and
these purines and pyrimidines are the basic building blocks of DNA or protein.
Now most of the requirements for folate in men and non-pregnant women are
obtained from a healthy and well balanced diet. No surprise there, pregnant
and breastfeeding women and children during their growing years require folate
in their diet and in pregnant women, for example, a lack of folate and diet can
lead to severe nerve defects like a neural tube defect, spina bifida,
encephalopathy and barred children cleft palates, so the daily recommendations for
folic acid for adults and children over 11 years it's about 200 micrograms and
any women considering pregnancy, 200 micrograms or more, that's a folate
supplement, is a really good baseline. Folate deficiency occurs primarily in
two cases.. The excessive demands of folate during pregnancy and breastfeeding and
the excessive loss of folate from like Crohn's disease or untreated celiac
disease, alcoholism, the different types of medication side effects like a
diuretic and the symptoms of folate deficiency, in the most cases, there may
be a general symptoms of anemia like fatigue and tiredness but there can be a
factor in diarrhea, a loss of appetite, headaches, heart palpitations, sore tongue,
and behavioral disorders. A folate deficiency during pregnancy can be
associated with nerve defects in the fetus and the fetus develops rapidly
and developed spine and nerve cells in the first few weeks of pregnancy.
Inadequate blood levels of folate during this time increases the risk on the
baby's spine and developing a neural tube defect, this may cause something
called a spinal malformation called spina bifida and folates also helped
to reduce high levels of homocysteine and homocysteine is a protein that
irritates blood vessels, it's really important in managing inflammation and
this can lead to increased risk of heart attack or stroke. Now there are foods
that are rich in folic acid, it's naturally found in dark green leafy
vegetables. The word folate in fact, actually comes from the word foliage.
Folate is a water soluble biome and it is thus lost easily from vegetables
during cooking, this can be prevented by avoiding overcooking and folates can
also be preserved by steaming or not microwaving vegetables rather than
boiling them. I don't think microwaving vegetables is the best way to prepare
them. Folate are also present foods that are fortified with folic acid and this
is practiced in many countries since despite recommendations, many women do
not take folic acid supplementation in early pregnancy. Foods commonly fortified
with folic acids in our breakfast cereals and flour. Now we talked about
foods that have fortified folate but routine fortifications may not
be beneficial as folates need to be supplemented along with other B vitamins,
like vitamin b12 because if it's not administered, it can relate to
irreversible nerve damage and there's a whole segment of your health associated
with MTHFR deficiency and we'll talk about that in future videos but if you
can't use folate properly, you're not going to be healthy.
Now the elderly populations have a high risk because they don't get enough
uptake of vitamin b12 and it's usually not present in their diet and so those
over 50 are adviced not to take folic acid supplements more than 200 micrograms per
day but for others long-term intake of folic acid and maybe from fortified
foods a supplement should be below about one milligram per day for adults and
lower amounts for children. Folic acid is one of those very important things
for health but you need to make sure that it's balanced with other B vitamins,
too much is bad, too little is bad.
We just finished the video on folic acid,
it's part of the B vitamin family. We want to give you information so that you
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