iThyroid.com

FOLIC ACID OR FOLATE

Folic acid is rather unique in hyperthyroidism, because scientists have found that it is one vitamin that is not low in the blood of hypers. For this reason I do not think it's as necessary to supplement folic acid as the other B vitamins.

Recently I discovered that folic acid is now being added to many grain products. I'm not sure of the exact date that this federal program began, but it makes me a little suspicious of whether this added folic acid could be depleting other essential B vitamins and therefore contributing to the development of hyperT in persons who consume a high grain or high carbohydrate diet. 

 

It's possible that the addition of other nutritional supplements to foods may also contribute to thyroid disease. For example, iron is added to many food products, especially breakfast cereals, breads, and other grain products. We know that excess iron will deplete copper, so it's possible that eating iron fortified foods is a contributing factor to hyperthyroidism. 

 

It would be a long shot if excess folic acid supplementation were a factor, but who knows? I'll look into this a little deeper. Here is the article from Dr. Mercola's site, www.mercola.com, where I learned that folic acid is being added to foods:

Folic Acid Fortification Making A Dent

The policy of adding folic acid to grain foods--including cereals, breads, pasta and flour--instituted just 3 years ago by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) appears to be a success.

Blood samples taken after folic acid supplementation show a 38% higher level of folate than samples taken before folic acid fortification; 96% of the people who had blood drawn after supplementation had acceptable folate levels. Among the people who had blood drawn before fortification, 87% had acceptable folate levels.

The government decided to mandate folic acid fortification as part of an effort to reduce the number of children born with neural tube defects, a type of birth defect that affects the brain and spinal cord and includes spina bifida.

Results of earlier studies demonstrated that folic acid supplementation before pregnancy and during the first weeks of pregnancy could reduce the risk of these defects.

The neural tubes close at about week 3 or 4 of pregnancy, so many women don't even know they are pregnant at that early stage. Initially, the government campaigned to simply have women of childbearing age routinely take folic acid supplements but compliance was very low. That's when the FDA decided to order mandatory fortification, she said.

Annual Meeting Of The Federation Of American Societies For Experimental Biology In Orlando, FL April 1, 2001

Nutr Rev 1999 Oct;57(10):314-21

Folate and cancer prevention: a new medical application of folate beyond hyperhomocysteinemia and neural tube defects.

Kim YI

Department of Medicine, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Folate is an important cofactor in the transfer of one-carbon moieties and plays a key role in DNA synthesis, repair, and methylation. The role of folate has greatly evolved from the prevention of macrocytic anemia to the prevention of cardiovascular disease and neural tube defects. More recently, epidemiologic, animal, and clinical evidence suggests that folate may also play a role in cancer prevention. Two recently published large, prospective epidemiologic studies suggest that maintaining adequate levels of serum folate or moderately increasing folate intakes from dietary sources and vitamin supplements can significantly reduce the risk of pancreatic and breast cancer, respectively. This protective effect of folate appears to be operative in subjects at risk for developing these cancers, namely, male smokers for pancreatic cancer and women regularly consuming a moderate amount of alcohol for breast cancer. Because the expanding role of folate nutrition in cancer prevention has major public health implications, research is required to clearly elucidate the effect of folate on carcinogenesis.