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I was reading this article on methyl folate and thought it might be worth sharing with you all. Even in small doses, it made me feel awful. Anyway, just wondered what you thought about it. Do we need to take care with it, especially in higher doses?

https://www.merrittwellness.com/mthfr-m ... out-mthfr/

"First, a little primer on the MTHFR enzyme (with the risk of me also oversimplifying!). Methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase is one of multiple enzymes which help your body pass around the “hot potato” of a methyl group. Methyl groups are found in many, many foods and are the source to add a carbon to molecules like DNA, hormones, phospholipids, neurotransmitters, proteins, etc. In the case of MTHFR, the methyl group helps to convert homocysteine to methionine. You might have heard homocysteine is correlated with cardiovascular disease, which is accurate, but you also need homocysteine to make glutathione, which is the body’s homemade antioxidant. So balance is key to remember here as well, since driving down homocysteine can also increase inflammation from insufficient glutathione.

Merck Pharmaceuticals designed 5-MTHF as an answer to the damage methotrexate does in its destruction of folate pathways in regards to treating cancer. In that particular case, taking 5-MTHF completely makes sense if you’re trying to rebuild those pathways. There can be isolated times where you might take it short term (like a week or two). But long term supplementation of methylfolate causes a list of side effects that rival a pharmaceutical drug: anxiety, irritability, insomnia (from changes in neurotransmitters), sore muscles and achy joints (from reduction in glutathione production), headaches and migraines (from increased nitric oxide production), nausea, palpitations, rashes and suicide, in addition to exacerbating B6 and B12 deficiencies, along with magnesium, zinc, copper, manganese and other mineral deficiencies."

- There is a lot more in there and it is worth reading the article in full.

Orange blossom, thanks so much for This! My ReCode doc has me on 2800 mcg of folate and1250 mcg of b12 daily. My homocysteine is high at 13.6umol/L and total glutathione 556uM just inside low normal range. He told me the folate and b12 were to get my glutathione up.
So, what to do? Stop the supplements and eat more spinach? I’ll talk to him about it.

Also had prostate cancer five years ago. Don’t want to stir that up.

The methylated B-vitamins are surprisingly powerful vitamins... pharma-B's basically.

I came across a Ben Lynch interview today that was a fun watch for the food / supplement nerd (I've been taking his Seeking Health B12 / Folate lozenge for the past few years.) Having just run out of the lozenge, I'm going to try ramping back up to the full "HomocysteX Plus" stack of B2+B6+B9+B12+TMG and see how that feels for a while. I remember it being a little edgy in the past, but I'd like to revisit the stack. There's that fine line to walk between feeling vibrant and motivated or anxious / irritable.

Yes, I have a compound heterozygous MTHFR variants so wasn't sure what to do either. Still a bit wary of folic acid, even though previously in pregnancy have taken it with no obvious problems. Read also that in nature, some of the folate is naturally methylated. I have settled on a Wholefoods vitamin B and folate supplement for now. It is made of some find of berry powder, Aceola I think. Anyway it doesn't have much folate per capsule, but could take a couple (about 40% of recommended intake). I'm just having more folate rich foods. And alternating with my general vitamin with folic acid in. This is a kind of compromise for me based on what I can tolerate but don't think is possibly the optimum.

The nutritionalists at the company supplying me with methyl folate tried to encourage me to try half a tablet, instead but even at that low dose it still caused problems. they told me

"We do provide folate in the methylated form to enhance the bioavailability but if you have any SNP's (genetic variant) on your genes, this can effect the way your body processed the supplement. It could be that the multivitamin is over-stimulating your methylation pathway, you could perhaps try supplementing with half a capsule per day and see how you get on before increasing the dosage. If it is of interest to you, you can also have your genes tested, and specifically look at a methylation report to gain a better understanding of your body."

I explained about the MTHFR variation and also having genes meaning fast processing of B vitamins into the mix, and they said

"your MTHFR is likely to be reduced in function which means that when you supplement with 5MTHF you are 'flooding' your methylation cycle which is possibly resulting in too many methyl groups being available. You could also be processing the B vitamins too quickly which could add to the problem if you're adding in methyl groups to a pathway that's usually too slow. The multivitamin will also be providing nutrients that will further support the methylation cycle, increasing its activity. Again, she would recommend starting with half a tablet per day and increasing slowly."

I'm giving it a miss for now though. feeling better for it. Please note might just be some of us who respond like this due to our genetics?

Good info, Orangeblossom. FWIW, we've previously discussed folate cautions in the past, but they're not easily searchable . Here's one thread that might be helpful.

Thank you, Orange Blossom, I really appreciate you posting the link to the article!

Orange, one strategy would be to look into:

Folate (as calcium folinate) 400 mcg DFE
Vitamin B12 (50% as hydroxocobalamin and 50% as adenosylcobalamin) 25 mcg

This is what Lynch uses in his multivitamin for people sensitive to methylated versions.

https://www.seekinghealth.com/optimal-m ... 5-capsules

SusanJ wrote:Orange, one strategy would be to look into:

Folate (as calcium folinate) 400 mcg DFE
Vitamin B12 (50% as hydroxocobalamin and 50% as adenosylcobalamin) 25 mcg

This is what Lynch uses in his multivitamin for people sensitive to methylated versions.

https://www.seekinghealth.com/optimal-m ... 5-capsules

Thanks, Susan. can i ask what you think on the amounts of B vitamins in that supplement, given that my genetic report says I am v efficient in metabolising them? It looked like quite high amounts to me. Is there a reason we need such high levels of B Vits along with the folate? Would it be a problem just to take a seperate calcium folinate I wonder. Also, i thought calcium isn;t good to take, but maybe that is just calcium carbonate? Thanks for any advice

Yes, it's easier to take them separately, so you can dose up or down according to how you feel.

The calcium in the folinate is not the same as taking calcium supplements.

Remind me, do you have high homocysteine? Is that why you're looking at folate and b12?