"Folate intake" refers to the amount of a vitamin called folate that you consume through your diet. Folate is crucial for healthy development and functioning of our body, especially for making new cells. So, it means how much folate you get from the food you eat.
Full definition
The strongest argument for pregnant women needing folic acid supplements comes from the tie between
adequate folate intake and reduced risk of having a baby with neural tube defects.
Recent
folate intake from foods can greatly affect the blood folate levels, which may therefore not be the best indicator of the adequate amount of folate in the body.
These findings underscore the need for additional studies on the potential negative impact of
high folate intake during pregnancy.
They observed that higher
total folate intake was associated with a lower risk for EG / suspected exfoliation glaucoma (SEG), supporting a possible causal role of homocysteine in EG / SEG.
A deficiency of folate can occur when an increased need for folate is not matched by an increased intake, when dietary
folate intake does not meet recommended needs, and when folate loss increases.
Adequate
folate intake lessens your risk of depression, heart disease, cancer and age - related vision and hearing loss.
Folate —
Folate intake guards against the development of certain cancers — specifically cervical, colon, pancreatic, and stomach cancers.
CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that high
folate intake may have adverse effects on fetal mouse development and that maternal MTHFR deficiency may improve or rescue some of the adverse outcomes.
However, there was a trend of a reduced risk of EG / SEG with higher total
folate intake, with relations being stronger for higher folate intake from supplements than from diet alone.
«Our conclusions are that higher
folate intake is associated with a lower risk for EG / SEG, supporting a possible causal role of homocysteine in EG / SEG,» said senior author Louis Pasquale, M.D., Glaucoma Service Director, Mass..
John Thorp, BJOG Deputy Editor - in - chief, added: «The population study is the largest database to look at the timing of
folate intake and the risk of a baby being SGA.
People aged 50 years and older have the highest total
folate intakes; about 5 percent have intakes exceeding the established tolerable upper intake level of 1,000 micrograms per day.
«If parents have the opportunity to plan a pregnancy, optimising their own health is of paramount importance and that includes things like regular exercise, balanced meals, a healthy weight, and certainly for the woman optimising
her folate intake and consumption of certain other vitamins.
People aged 50 years and older have the highest total
folate intakes and about 5 % have intakes exceeding the UL of 1,000 mcg per day, primarily due to folic acid from dietary supplements [17].
Almost all children aged 1 to 8 years who consume at least 200 mcg / day folic acid from dietary supplements have total
folate intakes that exceed the UL [16].
Folate intake is also associated with a decreased risk of depression and other mood disorders by inhibiting an overload of homocysteine in the body, which can hinder essential nutrients from reaching the brain.
Vitamins B6, B12, and folate are especially important for lowering our risk of hyperhomocysteinemia (excessive formation of homocysteine), and by making a large contribution to
our folate intake, cruciferous vegetables can help us lower our risk of all three cardiovascular diseases.
According to Dave Asprey, it is not smart for anyone to drink large amounts of green tea if you do not fix it with a higher
folate intake.
Folate intake and total caloric intake increased with higher consumption of fruits and vegetables.