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Depression, Alzheimer’s & Other Brain Challenges:

When Blood Folic Acid Levels Are Down & Homocysteine Is Elevated, Watch out!

Do you know your serum level of folic acid and homocysteine? If you don’t, then give some serious thought about have your doctor draw some blood and have these quantified. Judging from the research, these numbers may wind up as important to disease prevention as another set of numbers – your blood pressure reading!

Consider:

Researchers have determined that low blood folate and elevated homocysteine levels are associated with poor cognitive function. Not surprisingly, studies indicate that people with low serum folate levels who are experiencing cognitive challenges improve after taking supplemental folate or folic acid.

In addition, a number of informal studies have revealed that people in the throes of depression have subnormal serum folate levels. As you’d expect, folate supplementation has been shown to relieve depression according to many experts.

At least one rigorous clinical trial has been carried out in which folate was evaluated with regard to its ability to bolster patient response to the antidepressant drug Prozac. The 10-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled study involved 127 people with severe major depression who were given 500 microgram (mcgs) of folate daily. When the study ended it was found that female participants taking the folate supplement experienced significantly improved responses to Prozac. The improvements in male participants was not deemed significant, though blood tests made during the study indicated they had lower than normal levels of folate and would thus likely benefit in other ways from a higher intake of the vitamin.

How does folate pull off its therapeutic magic? Well, the tally isn’t in yet, but the research so far indicates that it a group of key systems in the brain, specifically serotonergic and noradrenergic receptors (Here is a link to one recent animal study). These receptors play a role in mood regulation and modulation.

Folate’s influence may also extend to preventing or slowing dementia and Alzheimer’s. How so? Folate plus several other B vitamins are integral in helping the body regulate homocysteine, an amino acid which is produced in our bodies as part of processing methionine (Another amino acid). Elevated homocysteine levels have been linked to the genesis of heart disease, but also to causing damage to neurons in the brain (There is even some evidence that elevated homocysteine is a player in the insidious neurologic disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease).

Homocysteine regulation aside, folate also benefits the brain by virtue of the fact that it helps increase plasma concentrations of cell membrane beneficial docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). These fatty acids plus arachidonic acid (AA) have been shown to be of value in dementia and Alzheimer's disease by engaging (up-regulating) gene expression concerned with neurogenesis, neurotransmission and connectivity. They also improve production of nitric oxide (eNO) by blood vessel wall lining endothelial cells, which contributes to blood pressure regulation and thus blood and oxygen flow. And enhance brain levels of the memory-critical neurotransmitter acetylcholine, suppress the production of pro-inflammatory compounds (cytokines), and contribute to the formation of precursors to anti-inflammatory compounds such as lipoxins, resolvins, and neuroprotectin D1 (NPD1) that protect neurons from the cell-damaging action of various neurotoxic compounds.

It is probably wise for consumers struggling with depression or looking to prevent Alzheimer’s or dementia to take folate in time-release form (so that it doesn’t hit the body all at once and be partially spilled into urine). One premier 12 hour time-release multivitamin rich in folate Nutracene®