Hi, Adster and PhoenX.
I think the situation with folate and cancer is that if you don't have cancer to start with, keeping your folate and B12 levels up will help your methylation cycle to properly methylate DNA and that will help to prevent cancers from developing. On the other hand, if you already have cancer, adding folate may make it worse, because cancer cells have a higher demand for folate than do normal cells. The reason seems to be that folate is necessary for making new DNA, and the cancer cells need to make a lot of that because they rapidly proliferate to form new cancer cells, and the old ones don't die.
I think this is somewhat similar to the situation with testosterone in men and estrogen in women. If they don't have cancer, it can be beneficial to supplement these if they are low. However, certain types of prostate cancer proliferate faster if given testosterone, and certain types of breast cancer do the same if given estrogen, so if the cancer is already present, it can be best to avoid these and even lower their levels in the body.
Folic acid is still not a form of folate that I would recommend. It is an unnatural, oxidized form, and there is some evidence that it suppresses the activity of the natural killer cells if it builds up in the blood. It will build up in some people because they have inherited a slow form of the enzyme DHFR (dihydrofolate reductase), which is needed to chemically reduce folic acid so that it can be used by the body.
Folic acid also competes with the active, natural forms of folate for absorption from the gut into the blood and from the blood into the cells. Since the active forms are what are needed in treating ME/CFS, I think it makes sense to minimize the amount of folic acid that is coming in, to enable the active ones to get into the cells better.
Best regards,
Rich
I think the situation with folate and cancer is that if you don't have cancer to start with, keeping your folate and B12 levels up will help your methylation cycle to properly methylate DNA and that will help to prevent cancers from developing. On the other hand, if you already have cancer, adding folate may make it worse, because cancer cells have a higher demand for folate than do normal cells. The reason seems to be that folate is necessary for making new DNA, and the cancer cells need to make a lot of that because they rapidly proliferate to form new cancer cells, and the old ones don't die.
I think this is somewhat similar to the situation with testosterone in men and estrogen in women. If they don't have cancer, it can be beneficial to supplement these if they are low. However, certain types of prostate cancer proliferate faster if given testosterone, and certain types of breast cancer do the same if given estrogen, so if the cancer is already present, it can be best to avoid these and even lower their levels in the body.
Folic acid is still not a form of folate that I would recommend. It is an unnatural, oxidized form, and there is some evidence that it suppresses the activity of the natural killer cells if it builds up in the blood. It will build up in some people because they have inherited a slow form of the enzyme DHFR (dihydrofolate reductase), which is needed to chemically reduce folic acid so that it can be used by the body.
Folic acid also competes with the active, natural forms of folate for absorption from the gut into the blood and from the blood into the cells. Since the active forms are what are needed in treating ME/CFS, I think it makes sense to minimize the amount of folic acid that is coming in, to enable the active ones to get into the cells better.
Best regards,
Rich