Miraculous vitamin folic acid fulfills children's wishes and protects against colon cancer

The many positive effects of folates

Folic acid has many beneficial properties and promotes good health in many ways. On the one hand, the vitamin couple helps to get a child faster and already provides for the embryo in the mother's stomach already for better health. On the other hand, it protects against colon cancer and against cardiovascular diseases, for example by causing a slight lowering of blood pressure. An expert explains why folates are so important to us.

Professor Berthold Koletzko is chairman of the Foundation for Child Health. In a recent recommendation, he explains the many benefits of regular folate intake. For example, the addition of folic acid in bread and pasta in the US and Canada led to a 20 percent decline in colorectal cancer cases. Also against high blood pressure show folic acid effect, because it is responsible for the degradation of vascular-damaging homocysteine ​​in the blood and thus contribute to a slight reduction in blood pressure.

An expert from the Foundation for Child Health explains the many benefits of folic acid and vitamin B9. (Image: rosinka79 / fotolia.com)

Healing folates

Professor Koletzko even gives folic acid a key role in the fight against heart attack and stroke. He cites a study from China, which showed that folic acid and B-vitamin supplements with folic acid could reduce the participants' stroke risk by up to 20 percent. Another study showed that the combination of folic acid and zinc increased the sperm count of the participants by 70 percent and thus also the chance to give birth to a child.

Folic acid - the baby vitamin

The expert advises especially pregnant women to an increased intake, because folic acid can protect the child from serious damage. "Pregnant women should eat a folate-rich diet and also take a folic acid preparation," said the Council of the Foundation for Child Health in a recent statement. The vitamin is an important component in the regeneration of cells and therefore involved in many essential processes in the body of the unborn child.

Folates protect the unborn child from malformations

The professor points out that folic acid can protect against a whole range of malformations. These include, for example, the neural tube defects such as spina bifida (open back) and hydrocephalus ("water head"). But heart failure, malformations of the urinary tract or the formation of a cleft lip and palate ("harelip") can be prevented by folic acid income during pregnancy. In addition, "the risk of anemia at birth is reduced and the risk of premature birth is reduced," says Koletzko. The Foundation for Child Health recommends daily intake of at least 400 micrograms of folic acid shortly before and during pregnancy.

Folates in the diet

"Folates are collective terms for a naturally occurring form of water-soluble B-vitamin, which is indispensable for human health," explains the expert. Folic acid does not occur in nature. It is the synthetically produced form of vitamin B9. Those who want to feed on folates should resort to abundant raw vegetables, fruits, leafy vegetables, cabbage, broccoli, lamb's lettuce, fennel, spinach, asparagus, whole grains, sauerkraut and potatoes. Virtually all vegetables and salads that are used to eat the leaves of the plant serve as a folate source.

Caution - Folates are lost quickly

"Unfortunately, the body can only utilize part of the folic acid it contains," explains Professor Koletzko. The vitamin is extremely sensitive to heat and light and is easily lost by prolonged cooking or keeping food warm. Thus, the body could use only about 50 percent of the folates contained in the diet. Synthetic folic acid, on the other hand, can be recycled to about 85 percent.

Nutritional supplements in the US and Canada have long been standard

Since 1998, flour, bread, rolls, breakfast cereals, rice and noodles have been fortified with folic acid in the USA and Canada as well as in about 100 other countries. This resulted in a large decrease in neural tube defects and congenital heart defects. In Germany, however, the number of these malformations has remained the same for years. (Vb)