Vitamin Deficiencies: Are You Getting Enough Vitamins? Part 1: Folate

On a day-to-day basis, many people are getting suboptimal levels of vitamins and minerals. The main causes are a combination of nutrient-depleted foods and poor digestion. Many people now supplement with multivitamins, but many of these supplements are of mediocre quality and do not deliver high enough levels of the vitamins and minerals that are essential to us.

Today is part one of a three-part series that explores vitamin B9 (folate), B12, and D deficiencies. By the end of this series you will know several key factors to identify what makes a good quality multivitamin.

Food and supplement labeling shows our Recommended Daily Intake (RDA) for vitamins and minerals. You may figure if you are getting 100% of any nutrient (say vitamin C) then you are doing really well. Wrong. The RDA is the bare minimum the average person needs to not have a vitamin or mineral deficiency. If you are getting 100% of your RDA for vitamin C, then you are getting just enough not to have scurvy. The RDA is about avoiding deficiencies and is nothing to do with good health – let alone optimal or vibrant health.

Many people are deficient in one or more vitamins. Moreover, our individual requirements may be quite different from the average need. For instance, folate is essential to our bodies. We require adequate levels of folate daily to produce cellular energy, build our blood cells and body tissues, and maintain healthy immune function.

Signs and symptoms of folate deficiency include:

• persistent fatigue

• pale skin

• tender tongue

• irritability

• diarrhea

• muscle weakness

• numbness and tingling in the feet and hands

• depression

Did you know that up to 55% of North Americans do not effectively convert folate to its bioactive (most useful) form, methyltetrahydrofolate (MTHF)? The reason is many of us have a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP, spoken as a “snip”). This is a genetic variation that causes some people to be inefficient converters of dietary forms of folate into its bioactive form. I like to call these SNPs “genetic hiccups”. If you have the most severe form of MTHF receptor SNP, then you may be more fatigued, poor at repairing your cells, detoxifying toxins from your body, or be more prone to mental disorders such as depression. There have been some cases of bipolar disorder being improved by proper MTHF supplementation.

There are now genetic tests available to determine how efficiently your body converts folate to its active form. I recently tested myself and found that I have a more severe SNP and require a minimum of 400 mcg of methylfolate per day to meet my basic needs. This explained why taking a good quality multivitamin or doing a detoxification program with high levels of MTFH always made me feel great!

For more information on vitamin deficiencies or for folate genetic testing, talk to your Naturopathic Doctor.