Talk:Folate

Folate has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
October 7, 2019	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on October 27, 2019.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that folic acid, a synthetic form of the vitamin folate, is added to wheat flour in many countries to reduce the risk of infants being born with spina bifida and other neural tube defects?

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Folate tests section? (serum vs. red blood cell)[edit]

Anyone want to add a section on folate tests (serum vs. red blood cell)? I understand the serum test is cheaper but the RBC test can detect more unusual things. E.g. Folate: A tale of two tests. Cheers, Facts707 (talk) 10:24, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Folic acid is not the same as folate[edit]

While both are a form of vitamin b9 and are used by the human body in the same way they are not the same they have slight differences as folate contains several related forms of vitamin b9 while folic acid is just one form and is the primary form in supplements and food fortification 71.241.203.13 (talk) 09:38, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This distinction is covered in the article. David notMD (talk) 10:57, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Solubility in water[edit]

We know that all B vitamins are water soluble. But the written amount for folic acid in the article is just 1.6 mg per liter. Is this number correct?! Aminabzz (talk) 14:47, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Aminabzz That value of 1.6 mg/L has been in the Infobox of the article for at least six years, but not referenced. It is probably from one of the websites in the Infobox. Did you find a different value from a source that can be a reference? If not, I suggest leave it be. David notMD (talk) 02:57, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Half life[edit]

Hello, David notMD and all the editors! Can you please add data on half-life of vitamin B9? For example, what is the half life of 400 mg taken as a supplement? In general, I think that this data on half life would be useful for all vitamin articles in Wikipedia, where such data exists in scientific or health literature. If no such data exist, maybe it should be bold to explicitly state that the half-life of vitamin B9 (or other respective vitamin in case of different vitamin article) taken as a supplement is not known!? Maxim Masiutin (talk) 10:50, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You are right, in that the article - despite GA rating - does not address pharmacokinetics. Alpers 2016 PMID26586110 would be a good starting references, and also Said 2016 21749321 and Visentin 2015 24512081. The answer is not simple. There is receptor-mediated absorption, but also potential for passive diffusion at high doses. Once absorbed there may be liver and other organ update, so that blood concentration may not be indicative. The Present Knowledge in Nuitrition ref (2020) confirms that there are two receptor proteins (PCFT and RFC) and also nonsaturable passive diffusion at pharmacological doses. The same receptor proteins function in the liver and other organs. Under non-supplemented conditions, urine and feces contain folate cleavage products. Add a supplement and intact folate is dumped in urine. David notMD (talk) 16:29, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the discussion on current data of folate. Besides folate, my idea was about all vitamins. The GA review is intended to be a lightweigh process and does not cover everything. I didn't mean that we should specifically address pharmacokinetics or pharmacodynamics, but I am sure that each vitamin article should cover at least two points: 1) oral absorption percentage and what affects the absorption rate if it is the case; 2) half-life (either plasma or biological or both or whatever applicable). Why it is important is that this data will shed light on whether vitamin pharmocological administration should be frequent such as B2 or (or keeps in plasma or tissues logner in lower quantities if it is the case) or it can accumulate for weeks or months such as B12.

So, I think that this absorption rate and accumulation capacity is very important in vitamin articles.

Would you please consider adding such data first and other data pharmacokinetics or pharmacodynamics afterwards? Maxim Masiutin (talk) 16:43, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I will start addressing this absorption topic for the B vitamins. Some already have an Absorption, metabolism and excretion section, although perhaps not the detail you hope for. If there is active absorption via transfer proteins, that system can become saturated, but there is also passive diffusion, so for non-physiological dietary supplements, total amount absorbed increases while percentage decreases. What to call half-life is difficult, as there is uptake by liver and other organs, and discharge of excess in urine, so what to measure (plasma?) is problematic. David notMD (talk) 02:03, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for acknowledging that you started addressing this issue, you've made my day! As about the transfer proteins and saturation such as the case in many vitamins, especially B vitamins, I understand that it is a complex process. My point was that at least we should start with something. Why I explicitly asked you to do that is because I could not find good information myself. I figured out a few years ago (it was first time I saw you started the big project on making all vitamin articles GA) that data on vitamins exists in sources which are hard to obtain, but you had access to these sources, which makes you a very valuable contributor. Thank you again for all your dedication and work on this megaproject. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 02:09, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You saw I added a few data about vitamin B6 half-life in the articles related to vitamin B6, but I afraid that something that I wrote is incorrect. Can you please peer-review my edits to let me know that they were OK? I will add details in the talk page vitamin B6. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 02:27, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Absorption, metabolism and excretion[edit]

Although a Good Article, this was missing detail and references on absorption, metabolism and excretion, so adding those. David notMD (talk) 13:49, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]