L-Methylfolate 15 mg by MethylPro

At 15 mg per capsule, this is a dose for people whose clinician has specifically recommended it and is monitoring how they respond. It is far beyond what food, a multivitamin or a standard folate supplement provides, and it is not something to choose on your own for general health. If your aim is to keep RBC Folate or Homocysteine in range, lower strengths do that; start there unless you have been told otherwise.

L-methylfolate, or L-5-methyltetrahydrofolate, is folate in its active form. The body normally makes it from food folate or folic acid through several enzyme steps, ending with MTHFR; a capsule of the finished form does not depend on those steps. In cells it passes a methyl group to homocysteine to regenerate methionine, which requires vitamin B12, and it takes part in building DNA and red blood cells. The label lists it as the calcium salt, along with 200 mg of glycine, an amino acid for which the label makes no claim.

Each capsule provides 25 mg DFE of folate, which is 15 mg of L-5-methylfolate. The label's suggested use is 1 capsule daily, or as directed by a healthcare practitioner. At this strength the practitioner's direction should come first: take it only if your clinician has recommended it, once daily, with or without food. Mornings suit most people, since doses this high can feel activating. Do not add other high-dose folate products on top of it, and do not change the dose without checking.

Vitamin B12 status should be known before the first capsule. High-dose folate can make the blood count look normal in B12 deficiency while nerve damage continues, so check Vitamin B12, and Methylmalonic Acid if it is borderline, and correct any shortfall. Folate can interfere with methotrexate and can lower levels of anti-seizure medicines such as phenytoin, phenobarbital and primidone, so your prescriber needs to know. If you have a seizure disorder or a history of bipolar disorder, or are pregnant or nursing, use it only with your clinician's agreement.

Agree at the outset what you and your clinician are tracking and when you will review it. Some people notice nothing; others report irritability, restlessness, headache, nausea or poor sleep, most often in the first few weeks. Report those instead of pushing through, since a lower strength is the usual answer. The 15 mg capsule differs from lower strengths only in dose: the form of folate is the same.