Seasoned readers will know that I am passionate about getting all essential nutrients from food. Food supplies the right balance in the right proportions. Any excess is easily excreted. You can’t overdose.
However, with the advent of synthetic fertiliser, pesticides and herbicides, farmed food is not as nutritious as it once was. Studies have shown that food can look fabulous but have little nutritional content, hence the saying that ‘the West has never been so overfed, but so undernourished.’
And so supplements were born.
In theory, this is a great idea. In practice, synthetic supplements (most on the market) are totally out of natural balance, as they are isolated. No nutrient is in isolation in nature. They are always present with those that are needed to digest and process the nutrient, to make it available to your body.
Folic acid, or folate, is vitamin B9, an essential vitamin often prescribed to pregnant mothers.
I recently read a report that found babies born from mothers who had taken the isolated folic acid supplement commonly prescribed, had higher than normal incidents of tumours and cancer. The Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening (US) trial linked folic acid intake with 20% to 32% increased risk of breast cancer in women consuming more than 400 microg/d supplemental folic acid.
The report goes on to warn, that in 2005 the use of folic acid (in a synthetic and isolated form) in fortification programmes worldwide could have, “the side effect of increasing the prevalence of some of the most significant, human life-threatening diseases.” One of them includes MTHFR (methylenetetrahydrofolate polymorphism). It is responsible for altering your DNA activity, increasing the risk for heart disease, colon cancer and acute leukemia later in life for the mother.*
So How Should You Take Your Folic Acid?
Those lacking in folic acid can become anaemic. But this is likely to occur because the overall diet is poor.
Natural foods that are rich in folic acid are green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, other green vegetables such as beans and peas and fruit.
Why eat poorly then fortify with supplements that are likely to cause you harm?
One of the best natural supplements are the superfood blue/green algaes. Because it’s a food, it is easily and fully absorbed and utilised. Try to buy those that which is harvested from pollution-free water and that which is fed naturally, such as by mineral-rich rivers and streams.
The one that I have found, that fits the bill for me, is the AFA blue/green algae from Lake Klamath in Oregan, USA. The algae grows naturally and is fed by mountain streams that are rich in minerals. The only human intervention is the harvesting. That comes as close as I know to being pollution free.
If you want to know more about the nutrients in the AFA, you can view them here. AFA is getting very good reports for naturally improving health in all areas.
*The People’s Chemist
