6 replies to this topic

[osris]

"Folic Acid Does Not Cause Cancer. So Who Made the Mistake?"

by Andrew W. Saul

"Science is a great servant but a poor master. Not infrequently, it can exemplify what Harvard math professor Tom Lehrer satirized as where "the important thing is to understand what you're doing, rather than to get the right answer." Just because a published study suggests something does not make it true.

I never liked math very much, and I still don't. But I am indebted to dedicated math teachers who taught me in spite of myself. Decades ago, one such teacher gave me wise advice that spans all disciplines: "Look at your answer. Does your answer make sense?"

So when research suggests that the vitamin folic acid somehow causes lung or colon cancer, it is time to hit the books. It may even occasionally be necessary to hit them right out of the way, and use common sense instead.

Folate, once known as vitamin B-9, is named after the dark green leafy vegetables it was first extracted from. "Folium" is Latin for leaf. Leaves and greens are high in folate. Herbivorous animals get plenty of folate because they eat plenty of foliage. Carnivorous animals also get plenty of folate, because they consume herbivorous animals. In the wild, this means the entire animal, including its abdominal organs full of the prey's last meal of partially digested vegetation. Indeed, the viscera are typically the first thing a predator eats.

If folate caused cancer, the whole animal kingdom would have a lot of it. And while wild animals have their own problems, cancer is rarely one of them.

If you look at the research suggesting a human cancer connection (1,2), it does not say that folate in food causes cancer. The research only points to folic acid, as specifically as found in supplements, as the bogey man.

But there is virtually no difference whatsoever between the two forms of this nutrient. Folate and folic acid are different only in whether the carboxylic acid groups have dissociated or not. Folic acid's molecular formula is C19, H19, N7, O6. Folate is C19, H18, N7, O6. The difference? Folate has one less hydrogen cation (H+). A hydrogen cation is a proton. A single proton. I have never seen evidence that protons cause cancer.

If folate/folic acid somehow caused cancer, it would have to be the rest of the molecule that is the problem. But most research shows that folic acid/folate prevents cancer. It is well-known that persons eating plant-based diets have a significantly lower risk of cancer. In addition to providing nutrients, eating more vegetation means more fiber and less constipation, valuable for preventing colon cancer. Herbivorous animals are definitely not constipated. Ask any dairy farmer, and you can start with me: many years ago, I used to milk 120 cows twice daily. When you walk behind Bossy, look out.

As for lung cancer, the research accusing folic acid also happens to show that 94% of the study subjects who developed lung cancer were either current or former smokers. Smoking causes cancer. Animals do not smoke. But they do eat a lot of foliage, either by grazing on greens or gorging on guts.

Both studies claiming that folic acid causes cancer were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which also contains a large amount of pharmaceutical advertising. JAMA is among the journals that peer-reviewed research has shown to be biased against vitamins due to vested interests. (3)

What is more likely: that a small group of scientists made an error or two, or that all of Nature did? On this one, I am backing the animals. 1.8 million species can't be all wrong."

(Andrew W. Saul taught biology, nutrition, and health science at the college level. He is the author of Doctor Yourself and Fire Your Doctor! and, with Dr. Abram Hoffer, co-author of Orthomolecular Medicine for Everyone and The Vitamin Cure for Alcoholism. Saul is featured in the documentary film Food Matters. He is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine.)"


References:

(1) Folic acid, B12 may increase cancer risk.
http://www.webmd.com...ase-cancer-risk
Original study: http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/19920236

(2) High doses of folic acid may increase colon cancer risk.
http://www.foxnews.c...,278237,00.html
Original study: http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/17551129

(3) Pharmaceutical advertising biases journals against vitamin supplements.
http://orthomolecula...ns/v05n02.shtml
Original study: Kemper KJ, Hood KL. Does pharmaceutical advertising affect journal publication about dietary supplements? BMC Complement Altern Med. 2008 Apr 9;8:11. Full text at http://www.biomedcen.../1472-6882/8/11 or http://www.pubmedcen...bmedid=18400092

http://orthomolecula...ns/v06n17.shtml

[ironfistx]

Does Andrew Saul have any credibility?

Edited by ironfistx, 05 February 2022 - 02:12 AM.

[osris]

I don't know, but his logic makes sense.

[Ukko]

This is a complex topic. Everything around cancer is. If folic acid/folate was a problem with cancer, then you should see increased cancer occurrence in people with a super active MTR gene and enzyme. MTR is the heart of the methionine / methylation cycle and what folate is primarily used for. It needs folate (Vitamin B9) and cobalamin (Vitamin B12) to do its magic. What it does is that it converts homocysteine to methionine through methylation. Cobalamin is the catalyst and folate is the raw material donating the methyl group while homocysteine is the substrate MTR acts on. More here: Methionine synthase - Wikipedia

 

Now, there are people, like me, who have a homozygous G / A2756G SNP form of MTR gene and, hence, of the enzyme. As long as folate is in ample supply and there is sufficient cobalamin, people like us are hyper converters of homocysteine to methionine. Our methylation can, and often does, run on overdrive, if you will. As DNA methylation is key, ours can be hyperactive. See more info here: Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase C677T and methionine synthase A2756G polymorphisms influence on leukocyte genomic DNA methylation level - PubMed (nih.gov)

 

Now, if ample folate caused cancer through rampant DNA methylation, we should be especially prone to get and develop cancer. Yet, as the studies show, the inverse is true at least in European populations. Though the situation may be different in at least some Asian populations. Again, cancer is a very complex topic, but just saying that folate through increased DNA methylation would cause cancer does not seem to be supported, at least for us of European origin. More here: https://www.nature.c...les/ejhg2009131

 

So, for all we know, eating a lot of folate significantly lowers the cancer risk for at least us Europeans, as evidenced by how that central MTR enzyme, which runs on folate as the the source of the methyl group, being very active significantly reduces cancer occurrence at least in us Europeans. That is not where the story ends though, as cancer is a highly complex topic. Many things matter.  Me being homozygous G for A2756G SNP for MTR means that both of my parents are either heterozygous G or even homozygous G for the same. Yet, they have both had cancer.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Ukko, 05 February 2022 - 03:32 PM.

[osris]

Thanks. Most informative.

 

I always ignore any reports that say vitamins cause cancer. Such reports are usually sponsored by Big Pharma.

 

Besides, even if a particular vitamin has been tentatively associated with cancer in a few people, I take many supplements that prevent cancer, so it all balances out in the end. 

[osris]

Just found this. Another B vitamin scare story:

 

"Megadoses of Vitamin B May Be Bad for Heart"

 

"When it come to heart health, megadoses of vitamin B may do more harm than good.

 

Contrary to their expectations, Norwegian researchers found that giving high doses of B vitamins to heart attack survivors does not lower the risk of a second heart attack or stroke. And survivors who took megadoses of two B vitamins -- B-6 and folic acid -- upped their risk of future heart disease complications.

 

While the researchers only looked at people who already had a heart attack, the findings likely apply to healthy people trying to ward off heart disease as well, says researcher Kaare Harald Bonaa, MD, professor of cardiology at the University of Tromso, Norway."

 

https://www.webmd.co...e-bad-for-heart

 

Speculative at best.

[Ukko]

They call it the B complex of vitamins for a reason. They are interconnected and come in different forms.

 

Taking the highly important methylation cycle, it needs a lot of B vitamins to work. B12 (cobalamin) as the catalyst and B9 (folate) as the methyl donor for its central MTR enzyme. However, the bottleneck is normally elsewhere genetically, often in the cascade of reactions leading for forming folate.

 

Of these the MTHFR is the rate limiting one, where majority of people have some genetic issues. Here's where B2 (riboflavin) comes in. It is key for MTHFR function. Also NAD(P)H plays a role for MTHFR meaning that B3 (NAD+) is relevant.

 

So that means that each of B2, B3, B9 and B12 play an important role in the methylation cycle. Really depends on your genetics, where your genetic strengths and weaknesses are. For most people, it is at MTHFR, but MTRR and MTR may also be implicated.

 

To make matters even more complicated, your body has a backup methylation system bypassing all of that using TMG (betaine), also sometimes called a B vitamin. This is the BHMT enzyme encoded by the corresponding gene.

 

And to even further complicate things, there is the CBS enzyme using B6 (pyridoxal) that redirects some of the homocysteine away from the methylation cycle ultimately towards the formation of cysteine. So, each of vitamins B2, B3, B6, B9, B12 and TMG play a role as do your genes for the MTR, MTRR, MTHFR, BHMT and CBS enzymes, just to name a few.

 

So to cram high doses of just the pyridoxine precursor to the bioactive B6 (pyridoxal-5-phosphate) and the folic acid precursor to bioactive B9 (methyl folate) and to expect that to somehow make a huge positive difference with heart disease is naive at best. 

 

Nature is complicated.

 

For almost all people, supplementing TMG would make sense. Really a wonderful molecule with no known toxicity. This will fire up your backup methylation system. For the main one, B2 probably make sense for most people, as it helps the rate limiting MTHFR to run. But it gets more complicated with B9 and B12, which really depends on your genetics. Same with B6. Really tricky molecule as it needs to be in phosphorylated pyridxal-5-phospate form to work, yet needs to have the phosphor group removed formed to enter into cells and the same to be added back within the cells. And many people have some genetic issues with phosphorylation. What's more are the genetic differences with the CBS enzyme that uses B6 to redirect homocysteine to an altogether different enzyme cascade. Supplementing high amounts of B6 is probably of least use and of most potential danger for most people. And supplementing B9 can be tricky also. Yet that it is exactly what the geniuses did in that study. Would likely have been wiser to supplement B2 and TMG, either in addition to B6 and B9, or even instead of them.

Edited by Ukko, 06 February 2022 - 03:04 PM.