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Book of Brain
Brain Center
Folic
Acid Topics
Preventing Fetal Abnormalities
Preventing Parkinson's Disease
Preventing Heart Attacks and
Stokes
Preventing Cancer
Anyone with an interest in Nutritional Therapy will want to read, understand and
use the Alpha Nutrition Program
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This deceptively simple technology solves
common food-related health problems.
Modular
Nutrition
Vitamin E
Vitamin C
Vitamin A
Vitamin D
Minerals
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More applications of
folic acid supplementation are appearing in the research literature.
People who have Alzheimer’s disease, for example, often have low levels of
folic acid in their blood. Increasing folic acid intake by supplementation
could be beneficial to the aging brain, protecting it against Alzheimer’s
and other neurodegenerative diseases. In AD, plaques develop first in
areas of the brain that are essential for memory and other cognitive functions. Plaques
include deposits of a protein, beta-amyloid. Unlike human brain cells,
brain cells in mice are not killed by the progressive accumulation of beta amyloid. According to a press
report from the US National Institute of Aging:
[i]
“Mouse experiments suggest that folic acid
could play an essential role in protecting the brain against the ravages
of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, according to
scientists at the National Institute on Aging. In one animal study
[ii]
the underlying biochemical mechanisms were investigated: People with high
blood levels of homocysteine have nearly twice the risk of developing the
disease.
[iii]
“The NIA team counted neurons in the
hippocampus, a brain region critical for learning and memory that is
destroyed as plaques accumulate during Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The
investigators found a decreased number of neurons in the mice fed the
folic acid deficient diet. The scientists also discovered that mice with
low amounts of dietary folic acid had elevated levels of homocysteine, an
amino acid, in the blood and brain. They suspect that increased levels of
homocysteine in the brain caused damage to the DNA of nerve cells in the
hippocampus. In transgenic mice fed an adequate amount of folate, nerve
cells in this brain region were able to repair damage to their DNA. But in
the transgenic mice fed a folate-deficient diet, nerve cells were unable
to repair this DNA damage… These new findings establish a possible
cause-effect relationship between elevated homocysteine levels and
degeneration of nerve cells involved in learning and memory in a mouse
model of Alzheimer's disease,” said Mark Mattson, Ph.D., chief of the
NIA’s Laboratory of Neurosciences and the study’s principal investigator.
“
[ii]
I. Kruman, T.S. Kumaravel, A. Lohani, W. Pedersen, R.G. Cutler, Y.
Kruman, N. Haughey, J. Lee, M. Evans, and M.P. Mattson, “Folic Acid
Deficiency and Homocysteine Impair DNA Repair in Hippocampal Neurons
and Sensitize Them To Amyloid Toxicity in Experimental Models of
Alzheimer’s Disease,” Journal of Neuroscience, 22:5, pp. 1752-1762.
[iii]
S. Sesdradri, A. Beiser, J. Selhub, et al., “Plasma Homocysteine As A
Risk Factor For Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease,” N Eng J Med,
346:7, pp. 476-483.
Folic acid deficiency
diseases: Anemia, Neural Tube Defects, Arterial Disease, Dementia,
Parkinson’s Disease, Colon and Breast Cancer
RDA 200 ug/day; 400 ug
during pregnancy; 280 ug during lactation
Supplement
Recommendation: 400 to 1000 ug/day
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