Talk:Folate

Rename

The page ought to be renamed to 'Folate' with 'folic acid' redirected here. Currently it is the opposite. 115.117.45.34 (talk) 01:47, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Why? Mlewan (talk) 06:09, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

As a lay person I find the reference to the radical - 'folate' - which I was taught does not exist in isolation, rather confusing. I may be wrong, but isn't folic acid 'hydrogen folate'; just as sulphuric acid which elsewhere is referred to simply as 'sulphate', is actually hydrogen sulphate?

Folate/Folic Acid

Folic Acid and folate are surely exactly the same thing. Who put in the questionable statement about folate being the naturally occuring form of folic acid? -ate denotes acid. I feel the statement about its origin should be removed. Hex ten (talk) 17:24, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Folic acid is of course an acid. Folate should only refer to the neutralized form, such as a salt of folic acid. -ic denotes an acid; -ate does not.

GentleMiant (talk) 01:44, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

They are not the same thing; folic acid is a specific chemical, and folate is a more general term referring to a whole class of chemicals which contain the folate group. For example, the active form of the vitamin is Levomefolic acid. It's not a simple question of salts of the acid, the term "folate" encompasses a variety of different organic chemicals. I currently brought up the issue below, of splitting off the article folic acid to refer to only this chemical, and have a separate (main) article on Vitamin B9 / Folates, which covers the class of molecules. Currently the articles use the terms almost interchangeably, which I think is confusing and problematic because folic acid usually refers to the synthetic form of folate; it does occur naturally but is only a small component of total folates in natural foods. Cazort (talk) 05:25, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Yep they aren't exactly the same. Folic acid is a synthetic compound and isn't what is naturally found in food. Tetrahydrofolates (THF) are the naturally occurring group of compounds. "Folate" appears to have become an umbrella term that includes both natural and synthetic forms, however there are some who prefer to use the word folate only for the natural forms (eg: http://chriskresser.com/folate-vs-folic-acid). If your liver is doing its job then it should be able to convert most of the synthetic folic acid to a biologically active THF form. 211.30.192.172 (talk) 22:20, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Agreed the article raises confusion on the point of folate vs folic acid, which are clearly not "exactly" the same thing and have slightly different metabolic implications... but while the introduction clearly states they are different (with definitions) it also explicitly says the terms are interchangeable, and for the rest of the article they are assumed to be the same thing. It appears the intro sentence about "There is no "natural" and chemical form of folate and folic acid" remains as a knee-jerk reaction against the "natural supplements vs chemical supplements" false dichotomy. This folate vs folic acid question really needs clarification, probably its own section on the (minor) metabolic differences and on research (if any) showing health differences (or lack thereof) between the two as part of a diet. Especially since various online health website articles (of varying quality) do exist making differences claims supposedly reported by research. (Joe - I'm a casual user here)14.200.2.233 (talk) 19:21, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

The article should be corrected. Clearly folic acid is not the same as folate. Here is one doctor's explanation... http://www.tahomaclinicblog.com/folic-acid/ Arydberg (talk) 20:42, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

"Folate, folic acid and 5-methyltetrahydrofolate are not the same thing" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24494987 86.182.53.213 (talk) 23:49, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Please fix this. They are not the same thing. Arydberg (talk) 11:53, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

An acid is not a vitamin. What you are doing is wrong. Quione (talk) 00:50, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

It's false that an acid cannot be a vitamin. For example, nicotinic acid is a vitamin. Life uses organic acids for many purposes—would die without them—and their acid and base forms coexist in solution—conjugate acid and conjugate base, labeled with "-ic acid" and "-ate", respectively, in hundreds of instances, for example, acetic acid and acetate. Now, granted that salts and esters can also use the -ate suffix, which is where some variation comes in. But somewhere at the heart of every such family of molecules is a functional group that is the same, which puts more of a unity into the topic than undereducated notions perceive. The main problem is that most of us are so ignorant of organic chemistry that we don't even know how to properly understand the spectrum between poles and we are easy prey both for reductionism on one hand (which oversimplifies reality and tells us that biology can be very easily replaced with technology, which is a distortion) and antiscience and pseudoscience on the other hand (which tells us, for example, that no vitamin supplement or vaccine is ever safe because The Man is always evilly conspiring to poison us). Neither of these polar-extreme caricatures represents true reality, which is a massively multivariate mixture somewhere in between. I myself belong to the "most of us" who don't know enough about chemistry. But we can be circumspect enough not to fall for either con too easily—neither the reductive overly analytical one nor the one that is devoid of analysis. Continuing to build Wikipedia's coverage and pedagogy is a helpful way to fight both extremes, in service of the true balance. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:13, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Is There a Down Side to Folic Acid

There are people that question whether Folic Acid is good for everyone.

see: https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-benefits-and-risks-of-folic-acid-supplementation/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arydberg (talk • contribs) 12:05, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, this is the main criticism of mandated fortification of foods with folic acid in a population. Officially, fortification of foods with folic acid has been mandated in many countries solely to improve the folate status of pregnant women to prevent Neural Tube Defects (NTDs)—a relatively rare birth defect which affected 0.5% of US births before fortification began. However, when fortification is introduced, several hundred thousand people are exposed to an increased intake of folic acid for each neural tube defect pregnancy that is prevented. In humans, increased folic acid intake leads to elevated blood concentrations of naturally occurring folates and of unmetabolized folic acid. The sources below explain the controversy. According to the sources, a high blood concentrations of folic acid may decrease natural killer cell cytotoxicity, and high folate status may reduce the response to drugs used to treat malaria, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and cancer. A combination of high folate levels and low vitamin B-12 status may be associated with an increased risk of cognitive impairment and anemia in the elderly and, in pregnant women, with an increased risk of insulin resistance and obesity in their children. Folate is believed to have a dual effect on cancer, protecting against cancer initiation but facilitating progression and growth of preneoplastic cells and subclinical cancers. Furthermore, intake of folic acid from fortification have turned out to be significantly greater than originally modeled in pre mandate predictions (as mentioned in the WP article). Therefore, there is concern that a high folic acid intake due to fortification may be harmful for more people than the policy is designed to help.[1][2][3][4] (JamesPem (talk) 21:25, 28 April 2015 (UTC))

Folic acid is a synthetic chemical that is processed by the liver to produce folate. It is force fed to the American people because that it helps pregnant woman but many notthean European countries have more successful birth rates than we do without folic acid.

When it was introduced the cases of colin cancer spiked upward. other countries also saw colin cancer shoot higher when they followed our lead. A Harvard publication blamed folic acid for 14,000 cases of cancer annually.

However the frequency of colon cancer then dropped overall. The USA now has one of the lowest incidents of colon cancer in the world in spite of the typical American diet having many risk factors. So folic acid supplementation correlates with a drop in colon cancer in the USA in spite of an initial bump upward. (see http://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(13)00638-7/abstract?cc=y= a 2014 study). The bump upward was likely due to preexisting early precancerous lesions progressing to cancer more quickly with initial folic acid supplementation but lowering the rates of formation of new precancerous lesions but I admit that is speculation. I cannot assess the Harvard study as you have not provided a link to same.Bjorklund21 (talk) 17:08, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

The links is harvard womens health watch vol. 15 number 7 march 2008

Arydberg (talk) 16:30, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Arydberg (talk) 16:29, 12 December 2015 (UTC) Some if not all folic acid comes from China. Arydberg (talk) 12:18, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Here is more on folic acid. http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=184898 Arydberg (talk) 09:46, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Pregnancy

This section needs better referencing and clearer descriptions of what is proven for folic acid and what is not. Reducing risk of neural tube defects is proven (see meta-analyses by Atta CA 2016 and De-Regil LM 2015 and others). All the others mentioned as possible benefits, such as stillbirths, small for gestational age, congenital heart defects, cleft palate/lip, pre-delivery maternal health, etc., need to be summarized using the best possible evidence. David notMD (talk) 20:42, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

So far as I can see folic acid is "associated with" reduced risk of NTD (which is not quite the same as "proven" reduced risk), and for everything else is of no benefit. That seems to be the state of knowledge per Cochrane reviews. Or are there newer MEDRS? Alexbrn (talk) 04:17, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Rare names

The stuff is very rarely called vitamin B9. These rare names can go in the infobox and the body IMO. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:06, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

OK, but the "also known as folate" thing is confusing people repeatedly, as seen in this talk page from 2011 and again in a recent anon edit in 2016. I know you are shooting for simplification, but the oversimplification is confusing people. If we say "Folic acid, along with its base from folate," then people will stop being confused. Quercus solaris (talk) 21:13, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

How about "another form of which is known as". Maybe 1 in 10,000 people know what a conjugated base is and thus it does not belong in the first sentence. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:27, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, your latest edit satisfies me. Regarding 1 in 10,000, yes, I totally agree, but that was why I piped the link. All that showed was "base", and people could click "base" to find out what it means. So I stand by the piping with 1-in-10,000 well in mind. But anyway, your edit is also helpful as another solution to the underlying problem. Thanks. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:11, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Perfect :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:09, 7 October 2016 (UTC)