Too Much Folic Acid
- By:vincent Platania
We all on occasion have accidently forgot and taken the extra nutritional supplement in one day. Many on realizing this wonder should I call the doctor? It’s just a supplement, isn’t it? Usually its not harmful to take two or even a few vitamin supplements in one day as long as you do not do this on a regular basis. Many vitamins and nutrients will be shunted out of the body in urine if they build up, but there are some that the body will keep on storing in the liver, which can cause a problem. Luckily folic acid is not one of these vitamins.
The body will store folic acid in the liver for a short period of time, but you need to take folic acid every single day-whether in diet or in supplement form-in order to make sure your body is getting enough of the vitamin to work properly.
As such it is difficult to take too much folic acid. It is true that there has been an upper tolerable intake set for folic acid of one thousand mcg. daily. This is due to folic acids ability to correct the condition of anemia. Anemia is a condition in which your body doesn’t properly form red blood cells. Folic acid is involved in the creation of red blood cells in the body and as such it can correct many forms of anemia including, Pernicious Anemia.
Pernicious Anemia is a type of anemia where in the red blood cells are unable to absorb and carry oxygen properly to the body. It is often caused by vitamin B12 deficiency. Its been found that taking supplements containing more than one thousand micrograms daily of folic acid can hinder the ability of laboratory tests to accurately detect vitamin B12 in blood samples. It also corrects the pernicious anemia caused by the deficiency thus ‘masking’ a symptom doctors would look for in making a diagnosis.
Another reason for setting a tolerable intake limit on folic acid is that some people develop an allergic reaction to folate in doses as low as one thousand micrograms. The common symptom being itching.
Plus it has been found that doses of folic acid as low as one thousand micrograms can interfere with the ability of some epilepsy drugs to work properly.
The idea of folic acid toxicity was brought about in the 1970 report in The Lancet involving a study of fourteen volunteers that took fifteen thousand micrograms of folic acid daily for one month. These volunteers developed mild symptoms of digestive and nervous system upset that went away three weeks after discontinuing the high dosage. But, this study was repeated several times and found no such side effects in repeated trials. You should have no reasonable need to worry about the toxicity of folic acid. These studies dealt with extremely high doses of the vitamin. The average folic acid supplement contains four to five hundred micrograms of folic acid. In order to reach a dosage as high as this you would need to take thirty supplement pills and do it every day. Then there is no garuntee that you would suffer anything more than mild symptoms. At worst you might worry yourself to death.
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About the author:
Author Vincent Platania represents the Stanley Home Products. Stanley Home Products has been in business since 1936, and offers high quality home and personal care products to keep your home and your body clean.
Visit http://www.stanley-home-products.com