Folate and Folic Acid

Folate and folic acid are two sources of vitamin B9 in the body. There are polymorphisms (FOLH1, MTR, etc) which can increase or decrease a person's ability to metabolize it, which can change individual requirements for folate in the diet:

[1]

Stress has been found to lead to an increase in homocysteine in the blood.[2]

Folate is required for the breakdown of homocysteine.[3] Hyperhomocysteinemia can induce folate deficiency.[4]

One of the functions of folate in the body is to create S-adenosyl-methionine (SAM or SAMe).[5] If molecule A is necessary for the production of molecules B, C, and D, and there is a large requirement in the body for molecule B, it logically follows that supplementation of molecule B would reduce the body's requirement for molecule A. It would be interesting to see if supplementation of SAMe reduces the symptoms of folate deficiency.

S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) is essential for the methylation of DNA, glutathione, and other macromolecules.[6]

Folate is important for the synthesis of purines and thymidylate, which are required for mitochondrial and cytosolic adenosine triphosphate (ATP), total nucleotide triphosphate (NTP), and deoxy-NTP (dNTP) production.1[6]

Interesting studies relating to folate:

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2728423/

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18425703/

[3] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/01.cir.0000165142.37711.e7

[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5601299/

[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5913057/

[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5709097/

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[7] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23538072/