Healthy Living in a Toxic World
Impaired functioning of MHTFR dependent on riboflavin status – (08-05-02)
Impaired functioning of MHTFR dependent on riboflavin status
Ahhhh….the plot thickens!! Sometimes I just have to sit back and laugh at the depravity of medicine when it comes to natural therapeutics…Unfortunately, most clinicians have never heard of defects in the MHTFR genotype and its impact on folic acid need. Well, despite the lack of knowledge, science moves on–we are now finding other factors that also impact the conversion of folic acid to its active form (tetrahydrafolate) via the enzyme MHTFR; in this case riboflavin. However, the clinical impact SHOULD be negligible–most good diets and definitely most good quality multivitamins will also supply healthy levels of riboflavin to counteract this negative association. As an interesting note…most prenatals from the pharmaceutical companies have low levels of riboflavin (gram for gram probably outweighed by the food coloring’s and processing chemicals…).
AJCN — Abstracts: McNulty et al. 76 (2): 436
