New Quatrefolic^® Educational Video series

Food folate and Folic Acid

Folate is the generic term for the water-soluble B-complex vitamin B9. The term folate stems from the Latin word folium, which means leaf; thus, folates are present in substantial amounts in green leafy vegetables.
Folates from food sources are absorbed through the intestinal wall. After being absorbed, dietary food folates must undergo several enzymatic steps before becoming usable by the body.

Folic acid is the oxidized form of folate that was synthesized in pure crystalline form for the first time in the 1940s. Many dietary supplements and fortified foods, such as cereal-based products, pasta, enriched bread, and fruit juice, include it.
It doesn’t occur in nature and has no biological functions. To utilize it, the human body must metabolize and reduce it to 5-MTHF using a multistep enzymatic conversion. 

Active form of folate: 5-MTHF

The biologically active form 5-MTHF, the predominant physiological form of folate found in blood and umbilical cord blood, is widely available as a food ingredient and doesn’t require metabolization.

Supplementation with active folate 5-MTHF bypasses the entire folate metabolization, and 5-MTHF is directly absorbed to exert the biological activity. Therefore, using 5-MTHF as a food supplement instead of FA is strongly recommended for external supplementation. 

Quatrefolic^®, the glucosamine salt of 5-MTHF, offers a significant advantage over previous generations of folates. Thanks to its high solubility and bioavailability, the supplement delivers finished folate directly used by an organism without any specific form of metabolism, which makes it the ideal choice because it’s suitable for everyone.