Uses Of Folic Acid - Benefits, Food, Dosage

Folic acid is a B complex vitamin. It is also known as folate or vitamin B9. B9 along with its other forms is responsible for preserving the health of the brain of infants. It helps prevent hearing loss and also creates red blood cells. It is an important ingredient of nucleic acids and all genetic material. It is used for various purposes in daily life, so let’s see some of the uses of folate.

Uses of Folic Acid

Naturally, occurring folate is seen in citrus fruits and also in dark green vegetables. While folic acid is a man-made form of vitamin B9. It is required in making genetic material, human body development and red blood synthesis. Below are the four important uses of folic acid in day-to-day life

• Folic acid for pregnancy
• Folic acid benefits for men
• Folic acid benefits skin
• Folic acid benefits for hair

Folic Acid for Pregnancy:

Folic acid is used in enhancing the fetus and preventing birth defects. During pregnancy intake of this protects the baby from neural tube defect, miscarriage, low birth weight, premature baby and poor growth in the womb.

Folic Acid Benefits for Men:

Folic acid is important in males as well. Especially for dads to be. It helps in the process of conception by stabilising the sperm count.

Folic Acid Benefits for Skin:

It helps in maintaining the natural beauty of the skin. It works as an anti-ageing, antioxidant and as a moisturiser. When it is applied, the quality of skin increases. Treats acne and dead cells. It effectively removes the dead skin, leaving the skin healthy with a natural glow

Folic Acid Benefits for Hair:

Plays an important role in hair growth. It helps in the process of blood circulation in the scalp. Deficiency of folate or folic acid can lead to premature greying of hair. Also, it can cause hair loss.

Other benefits are it helps in digestion, cures depression, it can prevent diabetes, cancer and memory loss, cures various infections like gum infection, it’s good for the heart etc.

Folate Intake

Some natural sources of folic acid intake from daily food include the following.

Food Items Rich in Folic Acid

Some food items that are enriched with folate are given in the following table:

Folic acid Dosage

Folic acid is a synthetic type of vitamin B9 so consumption of folate which is a natural type of B9 is recommended. It can be obtained through daily food. Since people consume both synthetic and natural folate the dietary folate requirements are described below:

This was brief on folic acid uses in our daily life. To know more about the uses of vitamin B9 download the BYJU’S – the learning app.

Read more:

• Functions of Nucleic acids
• Types of vitamins