18 Health Benefits of Folic acid (#5 might surprise you)

Dr. Heben and Team

Vitamin B9, or commonly known as folic acids, is part of the vitamin B complex along with thiamine, riboflavin, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, and many more. This vitamin is one of the most important nutrients for the body, as it will prevent you from many diseases and bring tons of greatness to your body. So what exactly are the health benefits of folic acids? Read this article and you will find everything you want to know about folic acids.

1. Healthier heart

Folic acid is essential to maintain the health of your heart. Folic acid is widely known as a creator of amino acids. Folic acid helps metabolize homocysteine ​​into methionine, which is one of the amino acids. So what makes folic acid beneficial for maintaining our heart health? Folic acid can metabolize homocysteine ​​so that the amount of homocysteine ​​in our body remains stable.

Homocysteine ​​is widely known for its harmful effects on our body. Studies have shown that homocysteine ​​is commonly related to various diseases such as atherosclerosis and heart problems.

2. Preventing stroke

Since folic acid can metabolize homocestein and convert it to methionine, folic acid could protect you from a stroke. Homocysteine is also widely known for its ability to increase the chance of stroke and many studies have already proven that claim.

A recent study shows that people who have high levels of homocysteine in the heart are more likely to suffer a common stroke up to 4 times higher than people who have lower levels. However, the direct cause of why a higher homocysteine level can increase the chance of stroke remains a mystery to date.

3. Improve fertility

Good news for men marrying soon or who has been married recently. Eating foods that contain high amounts of folic acid increases your fertility and this fact is supported by many studies. So many studies have already explored and found that folic acid plays an important role in spermatogenesis.

A study carried out in 2012 shows that men who were already suspected of infertility showed a rapid improvement related to the motility of their sperm after consuming a nutritional supplement, which also contains folic acid and thus, most of these men finally achieve his dream to become a father. In addition, another study shows that men who have low levels of folic acid in the body will be more susceptible to having an incorrect chromosomal structure in their sperm.

4. Maintain cholesterol levels

There is also good news for everyone with high cholesterol levels. Numerous studies also show that the addition of folic acid in the body will be beneficial to maintain cholesterol levels in our body and, in addition, reduce the amounts of LDL cholesterol.

Also, it turns out that folic acid will help convert carbohydrates into blood sugar, as well as metabolize fats and proteins in the body.

Bile is a substance that is produced from cholesterol that is very beneficial for digesting fats. A sufficient amount of folic acid will increase bile production and therefore lower cholesterol levels. In fact, studies conducted in Poland found that taking 0.4 mg of folic acid daily for 12 weeks significantly reduces the amount of LDL cholesterol in the body.

5. Prevent cancer

Folic acid can also be beneficial in protecting you from various types of cancers such as colon cancer, cervical cancer, and lung cancer. Several experiments suggest that the timing and dose of folic acid addition is very important for its anticancer ability.

With the addition of folic acid in the presence of a preneoplastic lesion, such as polyps in the colon, for example, tumor development may be prevented.

6. Avoiding depression

Could simply eating foods that contain high amounts of folic acid work whenever you are faced with depression, stress, and anxiety? Well, folic acid is known to stimulate your body's reaction to antidepressant medications.

Some studies say that people who have low levels of folic acid in their body will have a lack of response to antidepressant medications.

Specifically, L-methylfolate, which plays an important role in neurotransmitter synthesis, facilitates the synthesis of dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine, the three neurotransmitters that are actually beneficial in regulating your mood and can reduce the feeling of depression and anxiety in you.

7. Prevent anemia

Folic acid is also commonly known to prevent anemia. This is mainly because folic acid is a perfect source to stimulate the constant formation of red blood cells, essential to prevent anemia.

Simultaneously, folic acid will also have the responsibility of improving the production of hemoglobin. Hemoglobin has the important responsibility of transporting oxygen-rich blood from the lungs to other parts of your body.

8. Beneficial for pregnant women

This is probably the main benefit you can get when you have enough folic acid in your body. Folic acid is widely known for its benefits for pregnant women. Consuming enough folic acid during pregnancy will be beneficial to ensure that you experience a healthy pregnancy and maintain normal development of fetus.

Consuming enough folic acid during pregnancy will protect you and your baby from a disease called neural tube defect. The neural tube defect causes babies born with a disorder called spina bifida or incomplete development of the spinal cord to sometimes develop paralysis and brain damage.

Taking sufficient amounts of folic acid protects mother during pregnancy complications. A recent report says that women who took folic acid supplements during the second trimester had a reduced risk of pregnancy disorders such as pre-eclampsia.

9. Healthier skin

Do you know that folic acid is also essential to maintaining the health of your skin? Folic acid turns out to be a crucial contributor to cell enhancement and the repair of human skin cells. Here are some skin benefits of Folic acid:

· Anti-aging: Supplementation with folic acid is essential in improving firmness of skin and reducing the signs of skin aging.

· Prevent acne: Folic acid combined with antioxidants to remove toxins that stimulate the growth of acne bacteria which negatively affect the skin.

10. Prevent age-related macular degeneration

Folic acid is also beneficial in reducing the chance of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). AMD is the leading cause of vision loss in many people. According to a study conducted at Harvard Medical School, folic acid supplementation is linked with a reduced incidence of AMD.

The study was carried out in a group of women who were at risk of having AMD, and some of them received Vitamin B therapy (which contains folic acid), while others were given a medical control.

The result of the study: the group of women who received vitamin B therapy had the lowest incidence of AMD disease compared to the group that received basic medical monitoring.

11. Neurological support

Folic acid is also essential in supporting the neurological system in your brain and preventing the disease that is associated with the slowing of memory processing.

The addition of folic acids will improve cognitive function in many people.

A study that was published in the medical journal The Lancet showed that homocysteine is commonly linked to damage caused to the hippocampus. Researchers from the same study reported that participants who received folic acid showed significant improvement during cognitive tests compared to participants who received placebo.

12. Maintain the health of the cervix

Folic acid will be a very important supplement to protect against cervical cancer. Many studies have shown that folic acid supplementation may prevent cervical dyslapsia, which is a precancerous condition of the cervix. This is because folic acid could stimulate DNA synthesis.

The replacement activity of these cells is very important as they must continually form DNA as part of their genetic makeup.

The study by Butterworth et al. Evidence that patients with moderate levels of cervical dyslapsy showed significant improvement related to the condition of their cervix after taking folic acid supplements regularly for about three months.

13. Strengthen bones

Well, this is good news for all athletes. Folic acid has been shown to be very good for strengthening bones and also muscles. In fact, folic acid is also beneficial for bodybuilding. Folic acid will allow you to have access to many amino acids that will provide you with the essential building blocks important for developing body mass.

Folic acid will help the body to stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood. This hemoglobin will then help your body create new cells from amino acid building blocks, which will then transform it into body mass.

14. Beneficial for chronic kidney disease

Today, folic acid is also commonly used as a remedy for many chronic kidney diseases. The dangerous fact is that chronic kidney disease is incurable, so you must protect yourself from this disease.

It is usually very difficult to diagnose if you have chronic kidney disease as it has no obvious symptoms and when the disease becomes more complicated it will also lead to heart problems and anemia.

Therefore, folic acid intake is very important for patients suffering from chronic kidney disease to maintain the growth of new cells and also prevent anemia. Also, since cardiovascular disease is a common cause of death in patients suffering from chronic kidney disease, folic acid supplementation will be very beneficial for them.

15. Reduce the risk of high blood pressure

Folic acid is also very beneficial in reducing the risk of high blood pressure, especially for women. Women are more susceptible than men to high blood pressure. While at this time the mechanism on how folic acids can reduce hypertension, some experts say that it is related to the decrease in the amount of homocesteine in the body.

Homocysteine ​​is also commonly known as a threat to people with hypertension. However, many experiments have already shown that folic acid is really beneficial in reducing high blood pressure.

A study published by The Journal of the American Medical Association showed that folic acid reduces high blood pressure. The research followed a large group of women - nearly 94,000 who had high blood pressure - for about eight years to determine the effects of folic acid on them. The result of the research: a daily dose of folic acid of more than 1,000 mcg will reduce high blood pressure by up to 46 percent in these women.

16. Heal gum problems

Folic acid is also very beneficial in maintaining the health of your gums. Your gums are very important in supporting healthy teeth, so you should pay attention to them.

Many research studies have already shown that folic acid is quite essential for maintaining gum health because it can preserve gum tissues and also prevent gingivitis, which is the disease caused by inflammation of the gums by bacterial infections.

Beside this, folic acid will also prevent gum bleeding, which is commonly marked as the first signs of gum disease.

17. Prevent diabetes

Finally, folic acid is also very beneficial for everyone concerned about diabetes, especially Type 2 diabetes. Folic acid can protect you from diabetes in several ways:

· Increased lipolysis in adipocytes. Folic acid may protect you from obesity and type 2 diabetes by accelerating the hydrolysis of fats in adipose tissue cells.

· Improved endothelial function. Many patients with type 2 diabetes commonly suffer from endothelial function. Folic acid can prevent endothelial dysfunction by promoting vasodilation.

· Reduce the level of homocysteine. The amino acids homocysteine in the body will increase the chance that you will have various complications when you have type 2 diabetes. Folic acids will metabolize homocysteine and therefore lower the level of homocysteine in the body.