Folic acid handling by the human gut: implications for food fortification and supplementation.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Current thinking, which is based mainly on rodent studies, is that physiologic doses of folic acid (pterylmonoglutamic acid), such as dietary vitamin folates, are biotransformed in the intestinal mucosa and transferred to the portal vein as the natural circulating plasma folate, 5-methyltetrahydrofolic acid (5-MTHF) before entering the liver and the wider systemic blood supply.

Objective

We tested the assumption that, in humans, folic acid is biotransformed (reduced and methylated) to 5-MTHF in the intestinal mucosa.

Design

We conducted a crossover study in which we sampled portal and peripheral veins for labeled folate concentrations after oral ingestion with physiologic doses of stable-isotope-labeled folic acid or the reduced folate 5-formyltetrahydrofol

SUBMITTER: Patanwala I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4095662 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature