Juice Plus – Folic Acid vs Folate

Interesting story from today. �A distributor of mine (yes, I actually have a team of people out telling the world about Juice Plus, along with other things like the 60 Day Turnaround), sent me a text from someone complaining about juice plus because they saw it contained folic acid, not folate. �Which I found funny.

Funny, because they likely didn’t do any research, just read it somewhere, saw it, “who knows” it… and responded. �So I thought, “huh, I don’t recall juice plus adding anything other than to assist in preserving, or in sustaining the capsule, what is this about?”

So I did some digging, and before sharing what I found, I first want to express the difference between folic acid and folate. �Folic acid, to many of you, is something you want. �Especially pregnant women pre-conception and early development. �Folic acid however, is the synthetic version of folate. � Commonly referred to as Vitamin B9, � Folate/Folic acid is used to synthesize and repair DNA among other things. �Making it crucial in developmental stages.

Considering that, we can see the value is obvious to have it in your system. �Now here, before we go any further… WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?

From the NIH�:�Food
Folate is found naturally in a wide variety of foods, including vegetables (especially dark green leafy vegetables), fruits and fruit juices, nuts, beans, peas, dairy products, poultry and meat, eggs, seafood, and grains (Table 2) [3,7]. Spinach, liver, yeast, asparagus, and Brussels sprouts are among the foods with the highest levels of folate.

FOOD ITEM/McG per serving/% Daily Volume

This chart and the statements above, are reasons why the best source is to eat it, and to eat it naturally, or the next best thing is Juice Plus. �So why did they find folic acid in it? �Because folic acid is added in the form of the small amounts of grain added to the product, which is insignificant compared to the actual amount of folate present in the product.

So why does Juice Plus not state that they have folate in it? �Because the nature of the juice plus product is to state what food is in it. �They DO NOT separate vitamins and minerals, because they are all in there because they all occur naturally in the food. �As a culture we have grown so used to lists of stuff that we want to take, such as a supplement list. �That we have forgotten how to trust the best source, the food.

The volumes of research in the Juice Plus world, showing the value of supplementing this way, outshine all others. �Period. �This citation from the the Journal Nutrition had demonstrated an increase in blood folate as well as a reduction in homocysteine, a marker for heart disease.

This is important and significant information for all of you who have a heart disease concern and or risk. �Get yourself eating 13 servings a day of vegetables and fruit, and add Juice Plus at 1 capsule = one serving to make up the difference. �Questions? �Reach out to me, I can answer.

Be well and Be blessed! – Dr. E

J Nutr. 2003 Nov;133(11):3725; author reply 3726. A mixed fruit and vegetable concentrate increases plasma antioxidant vitamins and folate and lowers plasma homocysteine in men.Samman S, Sivarajah G, Man JC, Ahmad ZI, Petocz P, Caterson ID. Human Nutrition Unit, School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia. s.samman@mmb.usyd.edu.au Fruit and vegetable consumption is inversely associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) risk. The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of supplementation with dehydrated juice concentrates from mixed fruit and vegetables on selected plasma vitamins and antioxidant status. We assessed CHD risk by measuring the concentrations of homocysteine, lipids, lipoproteins, glucose and insulin. Men were recruited to participate in a randomized double-blind, crossover trial with 2 periods of 6 wk, separated by a 3-wk wash-out period. Supplementation with the encapsulated mixed extract (Juice Plus) was compared with physically similar placebo capsules. Thirty-two men (13 smokers, 19 nonsmokers) completed the study with a mean compliance of 88%. Compared with placebo, supplementation increased the concentrations of plasma beta-carotene (0.24 +/- 0.15 vs. 1.12 +/- 0.70 micro mol/L; mean +/- SD; and folic acid (24.5 +/- 10.0 vs. 44.9 +/- 16.9 nmol/L; P < 0.0001). Plasma homocysteine was reduced (8.2 +/- 1.5 vs. 7.6 +/- 1.1; P < 0.05) and inversely related (r = -0.40, P < 0.001) with serum folate concentrations.