Blackmores Institute

The case-controlled study of 421 participants (n= 207 women, n= 214 men) examined the associations between folate metabolism and anthropometric measurements using regression models and found serum folate concentrations and folate intake were inversely associated with body fat percentage (p &lt; 0.05) and waist circumference (p &lt; 0.05 and p &lt; 0.001 respectively). “In this study, we showed that low serum folate concentrations and low folate intakes are associated with greater BMI, higher body fat accumulation, and greater waist circumference, independently of the overall diet quality. Altogether, our findings support the hypothesis that higher folate intake could be a protective factor against obesity.,” the authors said.The researchers claim that an important strength of their study is that it is the first to consider folate intake, MTHFR and DHFR genotypes, serum folate levels, and plasma homocysteine levels, controls for total energy intake, physical activity, and diet quality. The hypothesis that inefficiency in folate metabolism, caused by genetic variation in key genes in folate metabolism or inadequate folate intake, is associated with greater body weight and excess accumulation of body fat prompted the researchers to only select functional single-nucleotide polymorphisms such as rs70991108 (DHFR) and rs1801133 (MTHFR), which have known mechanisms of action. “The associations between BMI, as well as fat mass and folate concentration, have been presented in several studies before, in different age categories and populations. However, none of these studies included as many confounding factors as here, especially intake of diet quality, which may have had a significant impact on the results.”
 
 According to the study, there are two possible mechanisms for the association reported to occur; firstly, low serum folate level may be an outcome of obesity, which could alter the pharmacokinetics of folate and lead to increased dietary folate requirements and; secondly, low serum folate level may be a cause of obesity through altered patterns of epigenetic modifications involved, for instance, in lipid metabolism.“Our finding that subjects with BMI &gt; 25 kg/ m2 had lower serum folate independently of intake and thus supports the hypothesis that obesity may be an independent factor that alters folate redistribution by increasing the cellular uptake of dietary folate,” the authors explained.“We also showed there to be associations between serum folate level and MTHFR genotype. Subjects with CT or TT genotype had lower serum folate levels than those with CC genotype. Despite the effect of genotype on folate levels, we did not find any associations between MTHFR polymorphism and anthropometric parameters. The lack of a direct association may be a result of a very small effect of the MTHFR genotype on body weight status and composition; for this reason, although the study used 400 subjects, this sample size may not have been large enough to detect such an effect.”The study concluded that as folate is one of dietary micronutrients associated with increased body weight development, it may be reasonable to increase the daily recommendation of folate intake for people with obesity, who may have greater requirements for folate intake. Source: Nutr J. 2020. DOI: <a href="https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12937-020-00572-6">10.1186/s12937-020-00572-6</a>.

Lower folate levels have been linked to greater body weight and adiposity levels, suggesting that an increased folate intake may be warranted in obese people, a new study has found.

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