Vitamins are essential for the body's functions and for a healthy appearance of skin and hair.
Let's see how folic acid could affect hair loss and white hair.
Folic acid, white hair and hair loss
Vitamins are essential molecules for the health of the body because they are involved in numerous metabolic processes in our body.
A vitamin deficiency can compromise health and manifest with imperfections that can affect skin and hair.
As we will see, folic acid is indispensable in some processes of biosynthesis in our body, to produce molecules that make up DNA: a deficiency of folic acid could therefore cause hair loss and premature graying, because the hair is cutaneous appendages rapid replacement, whose cells need DNA to reproduce .
Sparse hair, falling hair, white hair at a young age could therefore hide a deficiency of folic acid, especially if associated with other symptoms.
The daily requirement of folic acid is 0.2 milligrams; in pregnancy the value doubles to 0.4 milligrams. A balanced diet hardly needs supplementing, but folic acid deficiency is one of the most common and in certain cases it could be useful to resort to folic acid: commercially available foods enriched with folic acid, including breakfast cereals. supplements available in herbal medicine.
However, the physician must, through appropriate analysis, determine a possible folic acid deficiency and establish a possible therapy.
What is folic acid and what is it used for
Folic acid, or folate, is an essential water-soluble vitamin in the biosynthesis of many compounds produced by the body and its deficiency is one of the most common, especially in pregnant women.
An important function of folic acid is to act as a coenzyme in the form of tetrahydrofolate in the synthesis reactions of serine and methionine amino acids, purines and TMP, a DNA nucleotide.
The important deficiencies of folic acid (due to an increase in needs as in pregnancy, or to malabsorption caused by intestinal diseases, alcoholism or drugs) can lead to serious anemias due to the reduced synthesis of molecules important for DNA .
The symptoms are similar to those of vitamin B12 deficiency, so the cause of anemia should be evaluated by a doctor to establish a therapy. In pregnant women, folic acid deficiency can have important consequences such as spina bifida in the fetus.
Folic acid is not produced by our body, therefore it must be taken through the diet : vegetables with dark green leaves are particularly rich in this vitamin: spinach, green cabbage, turnip greens are some examples.
