Did you know about the health risks of Folic Acid??

this is a new video that we uploaded from our conversation with Dr. Joel Fuhrman. We put it in a blog post and also listed the key points made in the video in the blog itself. Here are key points:

-Nobody should be taking folic acid, they should instead focus on folate. Green vegetables in particular have a lot of folate in them.

-Food does not have folic acid in it, it has folate

-Folic acid is synthetic

-New science is showing that there are big health risks (increased risk of cancer) associated with taking folic acid. The studies that Dr. Fuhrman references are listed at the bottom of this blog post.

-Folate has the opposite effect. High folate intake is associated with dramatic decrease in cancer.

-Even if a supplement has the word "Folate" it is probabaly folic acid.

Link

Thu. Mar 11, 9:12am

this is such a new idea that wikipedia does not even differentiate between folate and folic acid. It seems like pregnant women should still take folic acid, but doctors also need to start educating pregnant women about the risks of folic acid plus the benefits of folate in green vegetables.

As for the rest of us, it seems that we need to stop supplementing foods with folic acid.

Saturday, March 13, 2010, 9:48 AM

ever since I first saw this video I see that folic acid is in everything. Even things at Whole Foods have folic acid in them. Orange juice has folic acid often. you need to check to make sure.

Friday, May 07, 2010, 3:37 PM

Thank you for this information! I was looking at multivitamins today and remembered this information.

I'm curious if there are any more updates regarding Folic, Folate, or any other items that may be found in multivitamins at this point in time.

Thank you.

Sunday, February 03, 2013, 4:35 PM

I thought folic acid was the precursor to folate. i.e. if you take folic acid, it converts to folate in your body. I could be wrong.

Sunday, February 03, 2013, 6:10 PM

Havard Researchers Skeptical About Multivitamins

Harvard Researchers Skeptical About Multivitamins
April 01, 2008

"There is no proof that a daily multivitamin is harmful,” the Harvard newsletter concluded. “Still, it now seems possible that the high levels of folic acid achieved by well-intentioned people who take a multivitamin and eat healthful foods could increase the risk of colorectal and possible prostate and breast cancers."

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/04/01/harvard-researchers-skeptical-about-multivitamins.aspx

Link

Thursday, February 07, 2013, 8:20 AM

6.10 is right. Folic acid----> folate, by enzymes.

Meat has folic acid.

As with everything, the trouble is EXCESS (like 8.20 said).

Really, people shouldn't take multivitamins unless the doctor or dietitian tells them they need to, they could be doing harm to themselves (we only need micrograms of vitamins daily, that's a millionth of a gram) so we usually get all we need from food and more.

Thursday, February 07, 2013, 3:34 PM

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