Does This Supplement Play a Role in Autism?

Scott: One of the things you're talking about at the conference here this weekend is folic acid supplementation.  And I think that one of the first things that people think of when they hear folic acid is pregnant women because that's what doctors recommend.  You say that's an issue, why?

Dr. Stephanie Seneff: Yes.  Very, very interesting actually.  In fact studies have shown that pregnant women who take additional, too much folic acid supplement, which is, they're encouraged to do this.  And especially throughout their pregnancy, which is bad, because you don't need it.  Later on in the pregnancy you don't want it, because it will work against you.  And actually that's um, having high folic acid exposure during pregnancy is a risk factor for autism in the offspring.  Also asthma.  And I've been really trying to figure that out.  

Folic acid is a complicated story.  But it's very interesting that folic acid is a synthetic form of folate.  Folate in food is always good for you, and we don't eat enough foods that contain folate, so we end up with a folate deficiency.  

Scott:  Which would be what?  Foods that contain folate.

Seneff:  Oh, yeah, it's a lot of these very dark leafy vegetables and also liver.  I mean some of these things that we don't eat anymore, like liver, that contain folate.  And um... the...

Scott:  Sorry to get you off track there, I'm sorry.

Seneff:  Lost my train of thought there...

Scott: It's synthetic... 

Seneff: So folic acid is a synthetic form that's oxidized and doesn't have a methyl.  So in order for it to turn into what you need, it really stresses the liver.  And it stresses the liver in the same way that glyphosate stresses the liver.  So you're getting kind of a double hit.  Again, just like the synergy between glyphosate and vaccines, you're getting synergy between glyphosate and folic acid.  And so the liver ends up with um... it's glutathione oxidized, and there's also this really important antioxidant, NADPH, which gets oxidized, so if it's oxidized, it doesn't work.  And autistic kids have high levels of oxidized, their ratio of oxidized to reduced glutathione is too high.  So they have this feature that would be characteristic of what the liver would do in the context of having to deal with the folic acid to turn it into the active form.  And what actually happens, if you're getting so much folic acid, the liver doesn't even bother to convert it into the active form because it can't afford to do so, it doesn't have the resources to do it.  And then you get free folic acid in the blood and that actually binds to the cerebral folate receptors and inactivates them.  So the effect is actually the reverse of what you want.  That you can't get folate into the brain, because the folic acid, which is useless to you, has bound all the receptors and prevented the folate from getting into the brain.  So you get a folate deficiency problem, in the context of too much folic acid.  It's really, really interesting science.  And it just, totally plays into the autism problem.  It's a compounding factor. 

The glyphosate actually causes the problem spina bifida, which is what caused the government to decide to make folic acid obligatory.  So it's all interconnected with the glyphosate.  And it was interesting, because in 1996 was when they first started to think about actually making, um requiring folic acid supplementation, fortification in all the wheat based products in the country.  They thought this might be a good thing to do.   Because they were noticing an increase in the incidents of spina bifida.  Spina bifida is terrible, but it's extremely, extremely rare.  And so you're fixing a rare problem, while you're introducing a much, much bigger problem with all these kids with autism.  It's not a good trade off.  It's really very similar to the vaccines.  When you look at the risk/benefit ratio, it really doesn't make sense.  And the um... so they introduced the folic acid in 1998 as a required fortification in the flour.  So when kids are eating a lot of cereal, you know, they're getting tons of folic acid.  And it's going to really harm their liver and end up with things like fatty liver disease, which is an epidemic right now.  

So it's really interesting how these ideas that appear to be good, backfire.  And this happens again and again with these interventions that the government does.  It's very scary when you do something like introducing a synthetic compound into a major food source.  You're forcing everybody to take that folic acid, whether they want to or not.  Unless they just eliminate wheat, and of course a lot of people are getting allergic to wheat.  Interestingly, a lot of people tell me that, just kind of rumors flying, that people who are allergic to wheat, go to Europe and they can eat the bread.  And they come back home and they can't eat it again.  So it's something different about the bread in Europe versus here.  And the Europeans have never, have refused to introduce a folic acid supplementation, you know, fortification program.  The US has pressured them a lot to do so and they have refused.  So that's quite interesting.  Whether that's connected, I don't know.  I haven't been able to find the scientific explanation for that, unless it's just more of the same with respect to the glyphosate.  Which I do think is very strongly linked to the wheat, the Celiac disease and gluten intolerance problems that we face today.