“Vitamin B9 (folic acid)?”Here!folic acid / folate
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As a supplement
Talk to your doctor or pharmacist.
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The synthetic, more stable form of vitamin B9, a water-soluble vitamin the body needs to make DNA and new cells.
Why it’s used
Taken to meet daily folate needs, particularly to support normal fetal neural tube development during pregnancy, and to correct or prevent folate deficiency.
What the evidence is for
reducing neural tube defect risk when taken before and during early pregnancy, and correcting folate deficiency.
What the evidence says
According to the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, folic acid supplementation before and during early pregnancy is well established to reduce the risk of neural tube defects, and correcting deficiency reliably raises blood folate levels. Evidence for other claimed benefits, such as mood or cardiovascular effects, is weaker and unsettled.
Dose studied
400–1000 mcg — adult RDA (as dietary folate equivalents) up to the tolerable upper intake level for synthetic folic acid, per NIH ODS.
Context
Public health guidance for neural tube defect risk reduction is generally built around an intake of 400 micrograms of folic acid daily beginning before conception, per NIH ODS; the adult RDA and tolerable upper intake level are set separately for synthetic folic acid versus food folate.
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 use).
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.