“Vitamin B9 (Folate)?”Here!folate / folic acid
Hasn’t appeared in a scanned product yet.
As a supplement
Talk to your doctor or pharmacist.
Roll Call does not check drug interactions or assess personal safety.
A B-vitamin found naturally in foods like leafy greens and legumes (folate) or manufactured as a more stable synthetic form (folic acid) used in supplements and fortified foods.
Why it’s used
Taken to meet daily folate needs, particularly to support red blood cell formation and, in people who may become pregnant, to reduce the risk of certain birth defects.
What the evidence is for
preventing neural tube defects when taken before and during early pregnancy, and correcting folate-deficiency anemia.
What the evidence says
The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements describes strong evidence that adequate folate intake, including through supplementation, reduces the risk of neural tube defects when taken before and during early pregnancy, and that folate deficiency causes a specific type of anemia correctable with folate. Evidence for other claimed benefits, such as general cognitive support in non-deficient adults, is much weaker.
Dose studied
400–1000 mcg — adult RDA up to the tolerable upper intake level for folic acid, per NIH ODS.
Context
The adult Recommended Dietary Allowance is 400 micrograms of dietary folate equivalents per day, rising during pregnancy; the tolerable upper intake level for folic acid from supplements and fortified foods in adults is 1,000 micrograms per day, per NIH ODS.
Rumors
Preventing the neural tube defects folate deficiency causes in early pregnancy, and correcting its megaloblastic anemia — weakness, fatigue, trouble concentrating and breathlessness.
Supports — establishedhealth and safety evidence
Studied in: women of childbearing age/pregnant women (periconceptional folic acid) and people with folate deficiency (megaloblastic anemia).
Measured as an outcome.
- Folate - Health Professional Fact Sheet (Regulatory) · Funding not checked
How much is a reference amount
- 400 mcg DFE a dayfor adults 19 and over · Recommended Dietary Allowance
Upper limit 1,000 mcg a day, from supplements and fortified foods — it does not apply to the nutrient as it occurs in food and only to synthetic folic acid — not to folate as it occurs in food.
The RDA is in dietary folate equivalents; the UL is in mcg of SYNTHETIC folic acid from supplements and fortified foods only — the FNB set no UL for folate from food. A label stating plain mcg cannot be compared to the DFE figure without knowing the form.
Every applicable line is shown because we don’t know which one is yours, and a reference intake is a target for a population, not a threshold for harm.