Why does taking folic acid cause yellow urine?

When women are preparing for pregnancy or during pregnancy, they will take appropriate folic acid supplements to strengthen the mother's physique, reduce pregnancy reactions, and to a certain extent promote the normal development of the baby and prevent fetal neural tube defects and some congenital diseases. However, after taking folic acid, many women will experience yellow urine. Why is this? Below we will introduce in detail the reasons why urine turns yellow after taking folic acid and the effects of folic acid.

1. Will taking folic acid turn urine yellow?

Taking folic acid tablets may also cause yellow urine. Folic acid is a water-soluble vitamin and generally will not cause poisoning even if it exceeds the minimum requirement for adults by 20 times. Any excess folic acid is excreted in the urine. Folic acid is rich in fresh fruits, vegetables and meat. If food is cooked for a long time, the folic acid in it can be lost by 50% to 90%. Folic acid is mainly absorbed in the duodenum and proximal jejunum. The human body stores 5 to 20 mg of folic acid. Folic acid is mainly excreted from the body through urine and feces, with a daily excretion of 2 to 5 ug.

Natural folic acid is widely found in animal and plant foods, especially in yeast, liver and green leafy vegetables. There are many foods that contain folic acid, but because natural folic acid is extremely unstable and easily oxidized by sunlight and heat, the human body can actually obtain very little folic acid from food. The bioavailability of folic acid is low, at around 45%. Synthetic folic acid can remain stable for months or years, is easily absorbed and has high utilization by the human body, about twice that of natural products.

Folic acid was originally extracted from liver extract and produced by synthetic methods. The traditional synthetic route of folic acid is to use nitrobenzoic acid as raw material through chlorination, condensation, reduction and cyclization. This process has a long process flow, low yield and high production cost. Tetramethoxypropanol and p-aminobenzoyl-L-glutamic acid were used as main raw materials to react with triaminopyrimidine sulfate to produce folic acid, with a total yield of 75% and a purity of 98%.

2. The role of folic acid

1. Effectively prevent fetal neural tube defects

Many expectant mothers still don’t understand what the neural tube is. Simply put, the neural tube is the spinal cord and brain. During the early development period of the fetus in the mother's body, the neural tube needs to develop and close. If the amount of folic acid is insufficient, it will cause abnormal closure of the neural tube, and then cause congenital malformations of the baby, such as encephalocele, anencephaly, mental retardation, spina bifida, etc. A study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that if women take 400 micrograms of folic acid every day in the month before pregnancy and within the first three months of pregnancy, the probability of their babies developing neural tube defects can be reduced by 50% to 70%.

2. Effectively prevent fetal congenital diseases, cleft lip and palate and other physical deformities

The first three months of pregnancy is an important period for the formation of the placenta and the differentiation of the baby's organs. During this stage, the baby's cell division is in a vigorous stage. If the pregnant woman lacks folic acid, it will cause the baby to have malformations of the cardiovascular, skeletal, lip, eye, kidney and other organs, which are the common cleft lip and palate, congenital heart disease, etc.

3. Reduce pregnancy reactions

Some expectant mothers said that after taking folic acid, their pregnancy reactions were alleviated, vomiting decreased, and breast pain was relieved. In fact, as a member of the vitamin B group, folic acid can not only reduce early pregnancy reactions, but also supplement

Replenish nutrients lost due to vomiting.