Vitamin B9, or commonly known as folic acids is the part of Vitamin B complex alongside thiamine, riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, and many more. This vitamin is one of the very important nutrients for the body since it will prevent you from many diseases and bring your body tons of greatness. So, what exactly the health benefits of folic acids. Read through this article and you’ll find everything you want to know about folic acids.
1. Healthier Heart
Folic acid will be very essential to keep the health of your heart. Folic acid is widely known as the creator of amino acids. In this case, folic acid will help to metabolize homocysteine into methionine, which is one of the amino acids. So, what makes the folate be beneficial to maintain the health of our heart? Well, the answer is that folic acids can metabolize homocysteine so that the amount of homocysteine in our body will stable all the time and not increased rapidly.
Homocysteine is widely known for its bad effects for our body, because some studies evidence that homocysteine is commonly linked to various diseases like atherosclerosis and heart problems. So, metabolize homocysteine into amino acids is the obvious way from folic acids to prevent the excessive amount of homocysteine in our body and thus, our health will be healthy all the time.
2. Prevent Stroke
Since the folic acid can metabolize homocyesteine and turns it into methionine, folic acid could protect you from stroke. Homocysteine is also widely known for its ability to increase the possibility of stroke and many studies already proved that statement.
A recent study evidence that the people who have high-levels of homocysteine in the heart will be more likely to suffer from the common stroke up to 4 times higher than people who have low-levels of homocysteine in their hear. However, the direct cause on why higher homocysteine level can increase the possibility of stroke still remains a mystery up to date.
3. Improve Male Fertility
This is a good news for every man who are about going to be married very soon or just recently getting married. Consuming foods that contain high amounts of folic acid will boost your fertility and this fact is supported by many studies. So, many studies have already explored and found out that folic acid played an important role in spermatogenesis that linked with the sperm function.
A study that conducted in 2012 evidence that the men who are already suspected to be an infertility showed a rapid improvement related to their sperm motility after consume a nutritional supplement, which also contain folic acid and thus, most of those men are finally achieved their dream to become a father. Also, another study evidence that men who are having a low levels of folic acid in the body will be more susceptible to have an incorrect chromosomal structure in their sperm. So, if you want to have a baby immediately, don’t be hesitate to consume foods that contain high amounts of folic acid.
4. Maintain Cholesterol Level
This is also a good news for everyone of you who has a high levels of cholesterol. Many studies also evidence that the addition of folic acid in the body will be beneficial to maintain the levels of cholesterol in our body and also, reduce the amounts of LDL cholesterol.
In addition to that folic acid turns out will help to turn the carbohydrates into a blood sugar as well as metabolize the fat and protein in the body.
A bile is a substance that produced from cholesterol in it is very beneficial to digest fat. A sufficient amount of folic acid will increase the production of the bile and thus, the cholesterol levels will be decreased. In fact, the study conducted at Poland found out that taking 0,4 mg of folic acid for 12 weeks on a daily routine will significantly reduce the amounts of LDL cholesterol in the body.
5. Prevent Cancer
Folic acids is also might be beneficial to protect you from various types of cancers like colon cancer, cervical cancer, and lung cancer. Several experiments suggest that the timing and dose of the addition of folic acid is truly important to its ability to against the cancer.
With the addition of folic acids before the existence of preneoplastic lesion, such as polyps in the colon, for example, will prevent the development of tumor. But please take a notice that experimental study have a mixed result associated with the link between the addition of folic acids with cancer prevention.
In a study conducted on animal, many researchers found out that the addition of moderate amount of folic acids will reduce the carcinogens. Meanwhile, the addition of excess folic acids turns out will increase the growth of the tumor in the body. So, you better consume folic acids in sufficient amount, just as recommended dose that shown on the other section in this article.
6. Reduce the Risk of Alzheimer
Folic acids turn out to be very good for your brain since it will prevent you from brain diseases associated with Alzheimer. Many researchers have found that homocysteine once again play a vital role on why you can suffer from the diseases associated with your brain like dementia and Alzheimer. As already described above, the folic acid will metabolize the homocysteine in methionine, which this move will prevent the excessive amount of homocysteine.
Many experimental studies already proved the efficacy of the folic acid to protect you from Alzheimer. There is a study that involves 579 men and women aged 60 years old and above. They are allowed to consume 400 mcg of folic acid in their daily life, and the result is just staggering, because the possibility of them having Alzheimer can be reduced up to 50 percent than the people who are not consuming enough folic acid.
7. Prevent You From Depression
Do you know that you can just simply consume foods that contain high amounts of folic acid whenever you’re facing some depression, stress, and anxiety? Well, guess what, the folic acid is a perfect source to stimulate your body reaction to antidepressant drugs.
Some studies say that the people who have low-levels of folic acids in their body will have a lack of response against antidepressant medication. Also, sufficient amount of folic acids will reduce your stress and depression levels directly.
So, you might wonder how can the folic acids can overcome the people’s depression? Well, folic acids contain the compound called L-Methylfolate, which is the only form of folic acids which plays an important role in neurotransmitter synthesis. Specifically, L-Methylfolate facilitates the synthesis of dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine, the three neurotransmitters that truly beneficial to regulate your mood and can reduce the depression and anxiety feeling in you.
8. Prevent Anemia
Folic acid is also commonly known to prevent you from anemia. Well, this is mainly because the folic acids are a perfect source to stimulate the constant formation of red blood cells, which is fundamental to prevent you from anemia.
Simultaneously, the folic acids will also have the responsibilty to improve the production of hemoglobin, which is formed because of the sufficient amount of red blood cells in the body.
This hemoglobin has an improtant responsibilty to carry the oxygen-rich blood from the lung to the other parts of your body, and also will ensure that you’ll be protected from anemia.
9. Beneficial For Pregnant Women
This is probably the main benefit that you can get when you’re having sufficient amount of folic acid in the body. Folic acid is widely known for its benefits for the pregnant women. Consuming enough folic acid during the pregnancy will be beneficial to make sure that they will go through the healthy pregnancy and maintain the normal development of the fetus.
So, consuming enough folic acids when you’re pregnant will protect you and your baby from a disease called neural tube defect. If you’re suffering from neural tube defects, this disease will easily attack you and your baby and this is dangerous since if you left it untreated, this will lead to miscarriage and also, the defects of your baby. Neural tube defect could make your baby become born with a disorder called spina bifida or the incomplete development of the spinal cord, which will lead to paralysis and brain damage.
The study has also shown that taking sufficient amounts of folic acids will protect the mother from pregnancy complications. A recent report says that the women who took folic acids supplements during the second trimester had reduced risk of the pregnancy disorder like pre-eclampsia.
10. Healthier Skin
Do you know that folic acid is also very essential to maintain the health of your skin? Folic acid turns out to be a crucial contributor of cell enhancement and repairing human skin cells which without a doubt will bring your skin a lot of greatness, Here are some benefits that you can get from folic acids for your skin:
- Anti-aging. The supplementation of folic acid is very essential to improve the firmness of your skin and reduce the signs of skin-aging and thus, you’ll be looking younger than your age!
- Prevents Acne. Folic acid will also combine with the antioxidants to remove the toxins that will bring the bad effect to your skin, since the toxins will stimulate the growth of acne bacteria.
- Glowing Skin. Folic acid is also beneficial to make your skin glowing because it can act as a moisturize to your skin. The result is, it will boost your overall appearance and you will become more confident to show yourself to other people.
11. Prevent Age-Related Macular Degeneration
Folic acid also beneficial to reduce the possibility of having age-related macular degeneration (AMD). For the information, AMD is the main cause of vision loss that occurs in many people. Based on the study conducted on A Harvard Medical School, folic acid has a link with the reduction of the possibility having AMD.
So, the study conducted on the group of women who at risk of having AMD disease, and some of them were given the Vitamin B (which contain folic acids) therapy, and the other were given the basic medical control.
The result of the study is that the group of women who were given the Vitamin B therapy had the lower incidence of AMD disease compared with the group who were given basic medical control. So, consume foods that contain folic acid right now to prevent you from AMD disease.
12. Provide Neurological Support
Folic acids also very fundamental to support the neurological system in your brain and prevent the disease that associated with the decline of the speed for processing memory in the brain called dementia.
There are some studies that already proved that the addition of folic acids would be very beneficial to protect you from dementia in your elderly period. In fact, the addition of folic acids will improve the cognitive function in many people.
So, a study that published in the medical journal called The Lancet evidence that the homocysteine is one of the main causes on why dementia could happen. Homocysteine is also commonly linked to cause a damage to hippocampus. Also, the researchers from the same study reported that the participants given the folic acids shows a significant improvement during the cognitive tests compared with the participants given the placebo.
13. Maintain the Health of Cervix
Folic acids will be very important vitamins to protect yourself from the cervical cancer. Many studies have shown that the supplementation of folic acids will prevent you from cervical dyslapsia, which is a pre-cancerous condition of the cervix. This is because the folic acids could stimulate the synthesis of the DNA as the cells will divide from one generation to the other.
So, the cells that line the cervix commonly replaced themselves about every 2 weeks. These cells replacement activity is very important as they must continuously form the DNA as part of their genetic structure. In case of you suffer from folic acid deficiency, the form of DNA will become abnormal and this will lead to cervical dyslapsia.
The study conducted by Butterworth et al. evidence that patients with moderate levels of cervical dyslapsia shown a significant improvement related to their cervix’s condition after taking folic acids supplements regularly for about three months.
14. Strengthen Your Bone
Well, this is a good news for every athlete. Folic acid shown to be very good to strengthen the bone and also, your muscle. In fact, folic acid will also beneficial for bodybuilding. Folic acid will enable you to have an access of many amino acids that will provide you the building blocks. The building blocks is very important to build the body mass.
So, how the folic acids could provide the building blocks for you? Well, as already mentioned above, the folic acids will help the body to stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood. Then, this hemoglobin will helps your body to create new cells from amino acid building blocks, which then will transform that into the body mass.
15. Beneficial For Chronic Kidney Disease
Nowadays, folic acid is also commonly used as the remedies of many chronic kidney diseases. The dangerous fact is, the chronic kidney disease is incurable, so you need to protect yourself from this disease.
Commonly, it is really hard to diagnose if you’re having chronic kidney disease since it don’t have obvious symptoms and when the disease become more complicated, it will also lead you to the heart problems and anemia too.
So, consuming folic acid is very important for patients who are suffering from chronic kidney disease to maintain the growth of the new cells and also prevent them from anemia. Also, since cardiovascular disease is a common cause of death from patients who are suffering from chronic kidney disease, the supplementation of folic acid will be very beneficial for them.
16. Reduce the Risk of High Blood Pressure
Folic acid is also very beneficial to reduce the risk of having high blood pressure, especially for the women. Women are more susceptible from having high blood pressure than men. While up in the moment the mechanism on how the folic acids can reduce the hypertension, but some experts say it is related to the decrease amount of homocyesteine in the body.
Homocysteine is also commonly known as a threat for people who are having hypertension. However, many experiments already proved that the folic acid is truly beneficial to reduce the high blood pressure.
A study published by The Journal of the American Medical Association evidence that folic acid will reduce the high blood pressure. So, the research followed a huge group of women, nearly 94,000 women who had the high blood pressure, for about eight years to determine the effects of folic acid on them. The result of the research is that the daily dosage of folic acid more than 1,000 mcg will reduce the high blood pressure up to 46 percent on those women.
17. Cure Gum Problems
Folic acid is also very beneficial to keep the health of your gums. Your gums are very important to support the health of the teeth so that you need to give it an attention.
Many research studies have already proven that the folic acid is pretty essential to maintain the health of your gums because it can preserve the gum tissues and also preventing gingivitis, which is the disease that caused by the inflammation of the gums provided by bacterial infections.
So, it is evidence that the folic acid supplementation could prevent the inflammation and also it will make your gum become stronger to face many plaques and bacterial infections. Beside that, folic acids also will prevent the bleeding gums, which is commonly marked as the early signs of the gum disease.
18. Prevent Diabetes
Finally, folic acid is also very beneficial too for everyone of you who feel concerned about diabetes, especially the type-2 diabetes. Well, folic acid will protect you from diabetes with several ways, which are:
- Increasing Lipolysis in adipocyte. Folic acid will be able to protect you from obesity and type-2 diabetes by accelerating the hydrolysis in fats in the cells in adipose tissue.
- Improving the endothelial function. Many patients with type 2 diabetes are commonly suffering from endothelial function. Folic acid can prevent you from endothelial dysfunction by promoting vasodilatation.
- Lowering the level of homocysteine. The homocysteine amino acids in the body will increase the possibility of you having various complications when you’re suffering from type 2 diabetes. The folic acids will metabolize the homocysteine and thus, the level of homocysteine in the body will be decreased.
Food That Contain Folic Acids
So, now you already know that the folic acids, like any other vitamins, will bring tons of greatness for the health of your body. Now you might wonder what kind of foods that contains a rich source of folic acids. You can see various kinds of foods that contain high amounts of folic acids in the following lists:
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Recommended Dose
Well, now after you know the benefits and the foods that contains high amounts of folic acids, you also need to know the recommended daily intake of folic acids. The dosage is pretty different from one person to another because the dose are depends on your age, gender, and your condition too. So, check the recommended dosage below.
| Life Stage |
Age |
Male (mcg/day) |
Female (mdcg/day) |
|
| Infants |
0-6 |
months |
65 |
65 |
| Infants |
7-12 |
months | 80 |
80 |
| Children |
1-3 |
years | 120 |
120 |
| Children |
4-8 |
years | 200 |
200 |
| Children |
9-13 |
years | 300 |
300 |
| Adolescents |
14-18 |
years | 400 |
500 |
| Adults |
19-50 |
years | 500 |
500 |
| Adults |
Over 50 |
years | 500 |
500 |
| Pregnancy |
All ages |
600 |
||
| Breastfeeding |
All ages |
500 |
||
However, there are also special dosage for the people with special condition, such as having a folic acid deficiency, or want treat their diseases as they need different dosage. Here are the dosage for people with special conditions:
- For people who suffering from folic acid deficiency : 250-1000 mcg / day
- For people who want to prevent from neural tube defects : 400 mcg / day
- For reducing colon cancer : 400 mcg / day
- For improving to the medications for depression : 200-500 mcg / day
- For people who want to prevent age-related macular degeneration : 2,5 mg.
Things About Folate Acid
So, after you know the benefits, the lists of foods, and the recommended dose, we will give you some useful information regarding this folic acids to ensure that you’ll get the full advantage of folic acids. Here is the information.
- You need to make sure that you have sufficient amount of folic acid in the body since the low levels of the folic acids in the body will lead to an increase amount of homocysteine which is very dangerous for your health.
- Folic acid deficiency could lead to sluggishness, loss of appetite, sort of breathness, and even constipation and diarrhea.
- Consuming caffeine, smoking, and taking on alcohol could decrease the levels of folic acids in the body.
- Make sure that you not overdose this folic acids and just follow the recommended dosage because if you’re taking folic acids over the recommended dosage, you’ll get the completely opposite thing of its benefits and will lead you to many diseases, like cancer for example.
- We recommend you to get the folic acids from natural source, which is the foods that already mentioned above, rather than take folic acids supplements. You should only use folic acid supplement for special occasions and under the prescription from your doctor.
So, now you already know everything that you need to know about folic acids. After you’ve read through this article, we bet that you are motivated to consume foods that contain folic acids because this vitamin will protect you from many harmful diseases. Well, stay healthy with Vitamin B9 or folic acids!