Dietary Folate Equivalents: Interpretation and Application
Section snippets
What are Dietary Folate Equivalents?
Dietary folate equivalents are units that account for the differences in the absorption of food folate and of synthetic folic acid obtained from dietary supplements or food fortified with folic acid. The polyglutamate side chain of food folate must be cleaved before absorption can occur. This converts food folate to the monoglutamate form, which is taken up by a specific carrier in the cell membrane of the small intestine (4). When synthetic folic acid (a monoglutamate) is consumed as a
Accuracy in Estimating Requirements
The physiologic requirement for folate represents the amount of folate the body requires after the folate is absorbed—the amount that actually enters the bloodstream. If the folate is supplied entirely in the form of food folate, more must be ingested to meet the physiologic requirement than would be true for synthetic folic acid. The Institute of Medicine's Subcommittee on Folate, B Vitamins, and Choline used several metabolic studies to estimate the folate requirement (1). Some of these
Reduction of the Risk of Neural Tube Defects
As indicated by footnote e in Table 1, the recommendation for women capable of becoming pregnant and in the first month of pregnancy is to consume 400 μg folic acid per day from fortified foods and/or supplements—in addition to intake of food folate from a varied diet (1). Because this recommendation refers specifically to synthetic folic acid, it differs from the RDA for folate, and dietary folate equivalents do not apply. Only folic acid from fortified food or supplements should be counted
Conclusion
The report Dietary Reference Intakes: Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B-6, Folate, Vitamin B-12, Pantothenic Acid, Biotin, and Choline(1) includes the following major recommendation: “Because of the difference in the bioavailability of food folate and synthetic folic acid, it is recommended that both food folate and synthetic folic acid be included in tables of food composition and in reports of intake. In other words, the content or intake of naturally occurring food folate should be
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2019, Reproductive BioMedicine OnlineCitation Excerpt :Nutrients intakes were estimated by summing the nutrient contribution of all food and supplement items. Total folate intake was calculated as the DFE to account for differences in absorption between natural and synthetic folate (Bailey, 1998; Suitor et al., 2000). The intake of vitamin B6, vitamin B12 and methyl donors such as choline, betaine and methionine was also derived from the FFQ.
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