Folic acid, also known as vitamin B9, is a water-soluble vitamin B group that can participate in the whole process of human metabolism. Natural folic acid is widely found in animal and plant foods, especially yeast, liver and green leafy vegetables.
If the human body lacks folic acid, it may lead to birth defects, cardiovascular diseases and tumor diseases, especially for pregnant women, and the probability of neural tube defects in babies will increase, thus the probability of spina bifida, anencephaly, cleft lip and palate and some types of heart defects will increase greatly.
For the blood system, folic acid works with vitamin B12 * * to promote the growth and maturity of red blood cells. Folic acid can also be used to treat anemia. If folic acid is lacking, megaloblastic anemia may occur.
For elderly friends, folic acid can help reduce the level of homocysteine, and homocysteine is one of the risk factors of cerebrovascular complications. Older friends should take folic acid while taking antihypertensive drugs, which can reduce the probability of stroke.
1, prevention of stroke
Besides common hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia and smoking, there is also homocysteinemia, which can be converted into other amino acids with the help of folic acid and vitamin B 12, so this kind of patients can take folic acid orally to reduce the value of homocysteine and prevent stroke.
2. Protect the brain and prevent dementia.
The lack of folic acid in the body of the elderly will cause problems in the regulation of functional areas in the brain. Alzheimer's disease is one of them. There have been experimental comparisons, and it has been found that the group that supplements folic acid, the other group does not supplement folic acid, and finally the group that does not supplement folic acid has an increased risk of brain diseases than those who supplement folic acid.
3, auxiliary regulation of people's emotions
Folic acid is one of the B vitamins, which can regulate people's nerves. Without folic acid in the body, people's mood will become negative, impetuous and psychological pressure will increase. If folic acid supplementation can restore the body to a mental state, this situation may also be caused by the lack of folic acid in the body, especially the elderly.
4. Reduce the risk of cancer
Folic acid is a water-soluble vitamin, which escorts the synthesis of cell DNA and inactivates cancer genes, thus preventing cancer. Appropriate intake of folic acid in peacetime can also reduce the risk of cancer.
When you supplement folic acid, you must strictly control the amount. If you take too much, it will hurt your health, so many people can't grasp this amount, and they are afraid to take too much and choose food to supplement their lives. There are indeed many foods rich in folic acid, such as spinach, broccoli, lettuce, citrus and other foods. The folic acid content is also relatively high, so you can eat more in peacetime.
For us normal people, there is no shortage of folic acid in the body. Everyone can eat more foods rich in folic acid to adjust, but if there is a serious shortage of folic acid in the body after testing, you need to take folic acid tablets.
However, folic acid will soon lose its activity when exposed to light and heat, so folic acid is not stable. When we supplement vegetables with food, the amount of folic acid will be reduced by 50%~70% if vegetables are left for 2~3 days. If we cook soup again, folic acid will be lost by 90%. When cooking and storing, we need to pay more attention.
Folic acid tablets should not be taken with vitamin C.
Folic acid is more conducive to absorption in alkaline and neutral environments, but unstable in acidic environments. If you take folic acid and vitamin C at the same time, it is easy to reduce the absorption rate of the two, which leads to mutual cancellation. Therefore, folic acid should not be taken with vitamin C, vitamin B2 and vitamin B6 at the same time, and it is best to take it at least half an hour apart.
Do not eat spicy or greasy food when taking folic acid tablets.
Folic acid can generally be eaten with a variety of foods, and there is no big taboo. However, when taking folic acid, don't eat spicy or greasy food often, which will interfere with the absorption of folic acid.
It is best not to drink tea when eating folic acid tablets.
Don't drink tea when taking folic acid, because tea contains tannic acid, which will destroy folic acid in the body and lead to the loss of efficacy, especially during pregnancy. Even if you want to drink tea, you should drink light tea, and you should take it with folic acid for more than half an hour.