American Fitness Professionals & Associates

By Susan Henry

Within this decade, folate (also called folacin and folic acid) has been found to provide an ever lengthening list of benefits. What our Nutrition 355 professor called “another B vitamin” is now beginning to be recognized as one of our most crucial nutrients. Scientists have documented that folate strengthens the immune system, promotes intellectual growth and sound eyesight, delivers anti-aging properties, protects against cervical cancer, strokes, heart and artery disease, and various neurological disorders. Folate deficiencies are linked to psychoses, neuroses, and depression; and to pregnancy and childbirth complications such as low birthweight, premature delivery, and birth defects.

The most recent discovery of folate’s benefits was announced at an international scientific conference in the Netherlands the week of April 27, 1998. A team of British, Norwegian, and Dutch scientists unveiled its findings that folate holds “a very promising” — and very simple — protection against Alzheimer’s disease.

In its study of hundreds of British patients, the team found a link between Alzheimer’s and high levels of homocysteine, a chemical produced by the body. Folic acid cuts homocysteine levels. (Research reported by Tufts University in 1995 noted the same finding, but added that folate PLUS Vitamin B-12 work together in concert.)

“The idea of reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by diet is a promising hypothesis,” said researcher Professor Helga Refsum of Bergen University, Norway. So promising, in fact, the scientists speculate on “the possibility of avoiding (Alzheimer’s) altogether” by increasing folic acid intake and thereby cutting homocysteine levels.

The discovery, according to the discoverers, “opens the way to a simple blood test (measuring homocysteine levels) for identifying those most at risk.” The (London) Sunday Times (April 26) quoted a British scientist: “If the interpretation being placed on these results is correct, it is potentially dynamite.”

Alzheimer’s (or perhaps more accurately, the damage to the immune system as a result of) is the fourth-ranked cause of death in the Western world, said the researchers.

Requirements (If you aren’t sure, take a lot!)

The amount of folate required by humans has been subject to constant change, but the change is constantly upward.

Prevention’s Food and Nutrition (Berkley, 1996) gives a Recommended Daily Allowance of 180 micrograms for women, 200 mcg. for men, but notes a protective range of 400 to 800 mcg. Corinne T. Netzer’s The Complete Book of Vitamin and Mineral Counts (Dell, 1997) gives a Recommended Daily Dosage of 400 mcg; the dosage “increases during pregnancy and lactation, with use of alcohol or oral contraceptives and during periods of stress and illness.” Vitamin supplements (1997-98 labels) count 400 mcg. as “100% RDA.”

Jean Carper’s Stop Aging Now! (Harper Collins 1995) ups the recommendation to “400 to 1,000 micrograms a day” for protection “from a heart attack, cancer and psychiatric disturbances.” Summarizing other research, Carper reports that more folate is required by smokers (”at least 600 micrograms daily”); the very young, whose brain circuits and neurological systems are still developing; the elderly, whose homocysteine levels are likely to be high; those taking antibiotics for prolonged periods, and those who frequently take antacids. Tufts University research (1995) reported that “if you get less than 350 micrograms of folic acid daily, you are apt to have high homocysteine.”

Elderly persons taking in less than 200 mcg daily “were six times more likely to have dangerously high homocysteine than those getting 400 mcg. daily.” Harvard researchers, in a study of 16,000 women and 9500 men, found that those getting 700 mcg/day had one-third less incidence of pre-cancerous colon polyps as those consuming less than 200 mcg/day. Beginning in late 1997, the USDA required manufacturers of ready-to-eat cereals to fortify their products with folate/folacin/folic acid. By directive, the “percentage of RDA” listed on all those boxes of shreds, flakes, puffs, and O’s is calculated at the rate of 400 mcg per day. (We notice, however, that a few brands still do not list folate among their nutrients. We do not know whether the processors failed to comply, or merely fail to list.)

Best Sources

Foods Micrograms of folate per serving Multigrain Cheerios Plus 400 Lentils, cooked, 1/2 c 179 Pinto Beans, boiled, 1/2 c 146 Spinach, cooked, 1/2 c 131 Orange juice, 1 cup, fresh 75

Supplements

The majority of folate research reports include recommendations to supplement. First, even a B-vitamin-conscious diet rarely supplies folacin in “protection range” quantities. And as Jean Carper notes in her research summary, “Your body can absorb and use at most 50 percent of the folic acid in food,” so supplements are necessary.

Rene Malinow, M.D., the professor of medicine at Oregon Health Sciences University whom Carper recognizes as “the father of homocysteine research,” says he personally “takes a supplement of 1,000 micrograms plus 400 mcg in a multiple-vitamin pill: a total of 1.4 milligrams of folic acid daily.”

Or, to paraphrase the advice of the international team of scientists reporting to the April international scientists’ convention: Eat your green veggies, and take your vitamin tablet, too.

–Susan O. Henry, SusanHenry@aol.com