Your Last Warning - Consume Folic Acid at your own risk.

MrCynical said:
Again - structures? What is the chemical difference between the molecules from different sources?

The chemical naming convention is X-ate being the conjugate base of X-acid. It's got nothing to do with whether a molecule was produced synthetically or naturally.
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http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/synthetic-vs-natural-vitamins/

http://www.hsfighters.com/folate_not_folicacid.htm

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/6988947...ar-Imaging-of-Folate-Receptor-Positive-Cancer
 
Awww, I got here too late for the lolroman lead poisoning bit :(
 
Rashiminos said:
That can change after the manufacturing process, depending on how the vitamin is stored
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Which is also true for vitamin from the natural source (I assume you're thinking of racemization). A molecule from a synthetic source will behave in exactly the same way as the same molecule from a natural source - undergo the same reactions, degrade if improperly stored and so on. If I present you with a molecule of Vitamin C it would be theoretically impossible for you to tell me whether it was synthetic or natural in origin, and the biochemical systems of the human body have no way to tell either.

@Kruelgor: You still haven't shown me what you think the difference in structure is between folate and folic acid. Your first link is just making the same mistake with other compounds, and conspicuously shows no structures.

Your second link is a bit more useful, but you seem to have mixed up folate with L-methyl folate (which are not the same thing). A quick summary - your link states that folic acid undergoes a four step conversion in the body to L-methyl folate, which is an important molecule for various biological processes. So does "folate" being the same as "folic acid". This particular site is just trying to sell you their "bio-active folate" which they explain is in fact L-methyl folate. All you're doing there is taking the end product of the metabolic process rather than the raw material. If there's a medical issue with that particular process in an individual then there could be some benefit in taking L-methyl folate directly, but it's a bit rich claiming that this is the natural option. Actually you don't naturally consume L-methyl folate - your body makes it from the folate/folic acid you normally consume. It's just trying to sell based on the old natural=good fallacy despite doing something which is strictly unnatural.

Your third link (kudos for linking to a real scientific paper by the way, but bear in mind it's behind a paywall for most people) is largely irrelevant, and again is referring to a much broader class of molecules "folates" in general. It's got nothing to do with synthetic vs natural.
 
Kruelgor said:
This is a scientific and legal topic, has nothing to do with a conspiracy as the defendants that will be on trial would like you to believe.
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Sure it does. You've pretty blatantly stated that the FDA is conspiring with the medical industry to suppress the "truth" about the dangers folic acid. That's the conspiracy theory that underlies your thought on this topic.

Anyways, here's a good link to set you straight, all though I'm afraid the guy doesn't go into much depth about how the effects of vitamins (good and bad) are ridiculously overblown by poorly regulated distributors. That was the only decent source I could find, so congratulations for being on the cutting edge of medical quackery.
 
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/alarm-sounded-over-dr-googles-diagnosis-20110210-1anl7.html
Doctors are warning of catastrophic consequences after new research revealed four in five Australians are turning to the web for health information and nearly half of those are using Dr Google to make a self-diagnosis.

Leading GPs say people are presenting to the doctor with fears of major health issues when the real problem is minor, while others put off going to their GPs because they believe their issue is not serious.

An international survey conducted by health insurance provider Bupa also found that of the 80 per cent of Australians who use the net to research health issues, 70 per cent also seek information about medicines.

The survey covered over 12,000 people around the world, including 1000 Australians. Globally, 68 per cent of respondents used the net to look for information about a medicine and 47 per cent to make a self-diagnosis.

Dr Brian Morton, former president of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) in NSW and chairman of the Council of General Practice, said he was seeing a man today who had presented with symptoms of temporal arteritis - inflammation and damage to blood vessels that supply the head area.

The condition must be managed urgently and can lead to "catastrophic blindness", Morton said.

However the 70-year-old man's son had Googled the symptoms - body aches and jaw pain when chewing - which led him to suspect they were actually side effects of Lipitor, a popular medication for reducing cholesterol.

"He thought all he needed to do was to stop his cholesterol lowering medication," said Morton.

Further, the man also used a search engine to research the medicine Morton prescribed him for temporal arteritis and second-guessed the treatment.

"So there is potential for Dr Google and well-meaning family members to cause catastrophe," Morton said.

He said he also regularly came across elderly people who were ordering questionable erectile dysfunction remedies from the internet. Another major online medication trend was people buying "natural remedies", with no guarantee that the product was effective or "the real McCoy".

"It's tagged as food stuffs or not as medication so it gets around regulation and secondly it's labelled as natural and people say if it's natural it can help me, just like eating a piece of fruit or something," he said.

Dr Steve Hambleton, federal vice-president of the AMA, said the "information explosion" on the internet had spawned many great sources of medical advice but also copious amounts of bad information.

"The 50 per cent who are trying to self-diagnose is really disturbing, because that's the hard part, that is where you need someone with very broad experience who can look at all the parameters at the same time and try and come to a view as to where we should go," he said.

"That's why GPs aren't allowed to practice independently until they've had 10 years of training."

He gave as an example a headache, which is a symptom of a brain tumour. However, the vast majority of people with headaches do not have brain tumours.

"You'll spend half the consultation convincing them they haven't got something and then the other half trying to figure out what they do have," said Hambleton.

Bupa's survey identified other examples. Pins and needles, depending on the website you look at, could be a vitamin B12 deficiency, sciatica or multiple sclerosis. Stomach cramps could be indigestion, appendicitis or heart disease, while an earache could be the result of a common cold, ear infection or brain abscess.

"You may actually be convinced you've got something you really don't have," said Hambleton.

Hambleton said people should only use the internet to research conditions a doctor has told them they have, rather than trying to put together a diagnosis based on multiple symptoms.

He said university websites, medical journals, government health websites and the sites of organisations specialising in specific diseases, such as Diabetes Australia, were the most reliable online sources of medical information.
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Kruelgor said:
It's interesting because Folate (the natural version) plays a big role in DNA synthesis and dividing cells. It completely makes sense that once you start messing with that in an artificial and synthetic form then you could severely mess something up - CANCER!
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Look, you can ignore chemistry all you'd like. I'd suggest you actually go take some chemistry classes, but that's not the type of thing conspiracy nuts do.

The thing is, folate, the "natural" version would have the same negative effects on people consuming too much. If you consumed too much folate for a long time, your risk of cancer may very well go up.

The issue isn't "natural" vs "artificial" but that nutrition is neither an exact science nor a very well understood one. You may very well have a very valid complaint about companies pushing the importance of supplements based on scant understanding of biological processes.

Too many people think they can eat a poor diet and make up for it by taking a multi-vitamin.
 
Kruelgor said:
Ancient Romans suffered greatly from lead poisoning which caused insanity, created by the lead piping system for drinking water. Some have even suggested that it caused the downfall of Rome because of the irrational decision making that lead poisoning causes.

Tomorrow's historians will talk about the high rate of carcinogens which your population today consumes, much in the same manner as the lead pipes of the Romans.
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Except that, you know, the Romans didn't suffer lead poisoning because of their plumbing systems. The water that they used was highly calcified and caused buildups of plague that isolated the water from the lead. The only real problem was when lead was used as cookware, which though only affected a small portion of the population.


Edit: I should probably read the entire thread before I reply to ludicrous statements. Though another voice shouting 'no' isn't necessarily a bad thing.
 
The overall evidence from studies in humans shows a lower risk of colon and breast cancer with greater intake of folate or folic acid, rather than increased risk.
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here is the source
 
MrCynical said:
A vitamin (e.g. vitamin C) is simply a molecule with a specific structure. Whether that's made in a lab, a living organism, or by other natural processes it is exactly the same thing. That's not just theoretical - if the synthetic vitamin C had a different structure from the natural it would by definition not be vitamin C.

Now it's true that you can have other molecules in there with the vitamins, but if that's also true with vitamins from natural sources. Synthetics are actually be held to a far higher standard of purity.
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You should have read the rest of my post to really understand my answer. Because the word "purity" has no generally beneficial character attached to it in the sense I meant. Which is that purity isn't the point, the point is what the impurity is made of. And in a natural way, it is made of what the body is designed to meet - which isn't the case with labs as they were no significant factor in our evolution from what I know.

If you don't find this important, than there is a lot about the complexity of nutrition you have to catch up on.
 
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