Why is methylfolate powder so difficult to find?

[Bluelude1]

Kind of odd that you can buy bulk quantities of just about any supplement, but methylfolate powder seems to terribly uncommon. There was one place I saw selling it but it was so crazy expensive you'd be better taking apart capsules to make you're own bag of powder.

Why is that the case? Patented, unstable or etc?

 

[valentinelynx]

The "methylfolate" market is complicated by multiple patents and confusion about what exactly a consumer is getting by purchasing a supplement called methylfolate. What you want is something with a high percentage of the active levorotary enantiomer L-5-Methyltetrahydrofolate, although it may be called something else, such as 6(S)-5-Methyltetrahydrofolate, or 6(S)-5-MTHF or a number of other things. In addition the folate may be combined with different salts, such as calcium salts or glucosamine salts. Merck has a patent on the name L-methylfolate, so other companies use other names for their supplements, but also have patents. I imagine it's not cost-effective at this time for someone to sell a non-branded product as a powder.

Here's an informative webpage about the various forms of L-MTHR (or whatever you want to call it):
L-Methylfolate, Methylfolate, 5-MTHF, L-5-MTHF. What is the Difference!?

 

[Bluelude1]

That sounds about right. Thanks for the clarification.