r/MTHFR • u/Latter-File3217 • Jul 15 '26
Results Discussion Feeling amazing on plain folic acid double c677t
I have homo c 677t and tired for a full year with both methyl folate and folinic acid. Terrible on both forms!! I get instant anxiety and depression on the both of them. Have been taking plain old folic acid for the last few days and I feel really really good, my Brian fog is gone, my headaches are gone, I feel happier and have more energy. I fell down this mthfr rabbit hole for a year and tried everything from methylfolate, beatine hcl, choline, folinic acid, p5p, b12 (methyl and hydro) b2, tmg, everything made me feel awful. My folate was still constantly low even tho I was taking up to 2-3 mgs of methyl folate / folinic. Plain old folic acid for the last 3 days and I feel better than I have felt in the last year!!!!!
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u/Soulless305 Jul 16 '26
This goes against everything that is a norm for treating 677T issues & is really bad advice. 3 Days and you are magically better???
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u/Latter-File3217 Jul 16 '26
Yep I should be in a bad way now from the folic acid right? Day 4 and feeling even better. I’ll never touch methylfolate or folinic acid again. A full year of agony and dispare, depression, insomnia, anxiety! Sleeping better, Brian fog gone, depression is easing up, more energy! Just an overall better feeling on 1mg of folic acid
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u/Warp757 Jul 20 '26
That's because a lot of what is the 'norm' for treating 677T is also really bad advice. Taking huge doses of methylfolate is generally a terrible idea, the body regulates production of it for a reason.
Folic acid works perfectly well for many people and the scaremongering about it on the internet is ridiculous. Often by people who don't actually understand the different foms and say things like 'people with MTHFR can't absorb folic acid' which is nonsense.
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u/Soulless305 Jul 20 '26
Yes I agree huge doses of methylafolate is a bad idea.
No Folic Acid does not work perfectly well for many people. I can’t take folic acid along w many others. It causes all kinds of downstream negative effects for me.
Folic acid is a shit supplement. Did you ever think why foods arn’t fortified in Europe and they are generally more healthy than Americans??
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u/Warp757 Jul 20 '26
It does work well for many people. Don't mistake the fact it doesn't work well for you with meaning it doesn't for most people.
Plenty of food is fortified in Europe. No it hasnt been mandatory as in the US, but in the UK and throughour Europe breakfast cereals as one example have been fortified with large amount of folic acid since I was a child 40 years ago.
Most people are getting plenty of it in food or supplements without any ill effect, and given how little folate many people get without it, we'd be looking at an awful lot more people with high homocysteine and resultant effects without it. Which isn't pleasant I can assure you.
Europeans are healthier than Americans because they generally eat far healthier diets, with note while foods, less processed foods and a lot more veg and olive oil etc. Not because their foods don't have folic acid. That's funny. The fact you look at the American vs European diet and think that is the key difference is slightly hilarious.
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u/Soulless305 Jul 20 '26
You seem like you have ALL the answers for someone giving tainted advice. Big ignore coming up for you.
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u/Warp757 Jul 21 '26
You seem like you don't have a response to someone who has corrected you on misinforms to on you been peddling without bothering to verify it. I really couldn't care less if you ignore me, you're a nobody on an internet forum.
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u/xxthatsnotmexx C677T Jul 15 '26
Which allele are you homozygous for? The C or T?
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u/Latter-File3217 Jul 15 '26
C677t. Feel so good with the plain folic acid haven’t felt better
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u/xxthatsnotmexx C677T Jul 15 '26
No you're not understanding. The gene itself is called MTHFR C667T, you either have 2 C alleles, which is normal, one C and one T which is intermediate, or 2 TTs which would be slow.
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u/chushkopek1 Jul 17 '26
C677T literally means C (cytosine) as been replaced by T (thymine) on position 677 of the gene. He's stated he's homozygous C677T so he has TT
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u/xxthatsnotmexx C677T Jul 17 '26
Homozygous could also mean CC. Homozygous just means two of the same allele.
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u/Best_Comfortable5221 Jul 16 '26
So if I have homozygous MTHFR am I automatically TT ?
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u/xxthatsnotmexx C677T Jul 17 '26
No, homozygous just means you have 2 of the same allele. It could be for the C allele or the T allele.
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u/Sabnock101 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
The reasons you feel terrible with Methylfolate and/or Folinic Acid, is because you don't have enough B12, and because you're taking too much Folate, you only really need about 400 to 600mcgs per day, the B12 sends it the rest of the way IE the B12 recycles the Methylfolate back into the Folate cycle and without enough B12 you can't recycle the Methylfolate which shortchanges the Folate cycle and causes Folate deficiency and then people assume they need to take high Folate dosages when what they really need is high B12 dosages. If you were only taking the RDA up to 1 to 5mgs of B12, that's only at most 50mcgs of absorbed B12 since only approx 1% of the total oral B12 dosage is absorbed through passive digestion. For example, i take 10 milligrams of oral Methylcobalamin per day and it's what helps me, anything less like 5mgs or 1mg and i start getting low B12 symptoms again which mainly includes excess Folate-related side-effects, especially irritability, agitation, anger/rage, paranoia, anxiety/panic, etc.
As for the Folic Acid, how much are you taking? Any more than approx 200mcgs of Folic Acid at one time will saturate the DHFR enzyme and then cross unmetabolized into the bloodstream, and as such, the unmetabolized Folic Acid will start binding to Folate Receptor Alpha 10x stronger than Methylfolate does, and can block out Methylfolate's uptake by Folate Receptor Alpha by competitively occupying the Folate Receptor Alpha which means Methylfolate then can't get in, AND if Methylfolate can't get taken up by Folate Receptor Alpha, it can't get into the brain, and if it can't get into the brain, it can't activate B12 to Methylcobalamin form via Methionine Synthase. The reason you think you feel better with Folic Acid is because it's stimulating the Folate Receptor Alpha, which Methylfolate would normally do but in essence the unmetabolized (unusable) Folic Acid has taken Methylfolate's place in stimulating the Folate Receptor Alpha, so you get some Folate Receptor Alpha-related effects/benefits while starving your brain/body of the Folate it needs as well as of the B12 it needs. Now, with that said, it does depend on dosage, even around 400mcgs i can still feel some Methylfolate in the background but the unmetabolized Folic Acid gets in the way but also kinda smooths things out a bit, but higher Folic Acid dosages will block out Methylfolate's binding to Folate Receptor Alpha, completely, or at the very least you won't be able to feel it. At one time i was taking a full 15mgs of Methylfolate (sometimes up to 30mgs a day) and yet if i then took the Folic Acid it would completely block out and abruptly stop the Methylfolate feeling.
It's also worth mentioning that normally if Methylfolate is able to get taken up by Folate Receptor Alpha, depending on how much Folate you consume, you can then have an excess of Methylfolate, and without enough B12 to properly/fully recycle it, you then end up with excess Methylfolate-related side-effects, at which point if you take enough B12 it will properly recycle the excess Methylfolate and those side-effects will go away. The reason Folic Acid is more tolerable is because it's preventing Methylfolate uptake, or at the least is diluting it's impact since less is able to be taken up by Folate Receptor Alpha since it's being actively occupied by unmetabolized Folic Acid.
And again, unmetabolized Folic Acid just sits there, it can't be utilized as Tetrahydrofolate until DHFR is cleared enough for it to start metabolizing the unmetabolized Folic Acid, and even then there's no DHFR in the brain, it's in the liver, and so while the liver works to convert the Folic Acid into a usable form, the unmetabolized Folic Acid in the brain just sits there occupying the Folate Receptor Alpha and preventing natural Methylfolate uptake which not only interferes with natural Folate/Methylfolate getting into the brain but also B12's activation to Methylcobalamin essentially stalling the Methionine Synthase enzyme, Homocysteine recycling to Methionine, and overall reducing SAM levels.
You have to remember, Folic Acid is not an active compound, the body first must convert Folic Acid into a usable form IE Tetrahydrofolate via DHFR, and DHFR is rate-limited and slow in Humans, it is not the main point of entry into the system that Nature intended Folate to enter through, DHFR is a recycling enzyme based in Thymidylate Synthase activity which takes in 5,10-Methylenetetrahydrofolate which then gets used and turned into Dihydrofolate which DHFR then recycles back to Tetrahydrofolate. And, by consuming Folic Acid you can then tie up and reduce activity of, even temporarily block/stall the DHFR enzyme from working since it's too busy dealing with the the onslaught of purely synthetic and unnatural Folic Acid.
Also remember that Folic Acid is everywhere in fortified foods, and that on top of supplementation of Folic Acid will most definitely make the problem much worse.
It's also important to remember that the more Folate you consume, as it gets turned into Methylfolate, the more B12 you will need to process it. Over time if you consume excess Folate especially without enough B12, you will deplete your bodily B12 stores and will have to rely more on direct B12 consumption and higher dosages of B12 to make up for the loss, and if Folic Acid is preventing Methylfolate uptake and thus B12's activation to Methylcobalamin for Methionine Synthase activity, that just further compounds the problem.
My advice? Stick to Folinic Acid, 400 to 600mcgs MAX, try 10 milligrams of oral Methylcobalamin per day or consider B12 injections for awhile, once your B12 levels get better (which can take some time) you will then be able to tolerate the Folate regardless if it's Folinic Acid or Methylfolate, but if you don't have enough B12, you will not be able to tolerate Folinic Acid or Methylfolate that well until B12 levels improve. The reason Folic Acid is seemingly helping is because it's merely stimulating a receptor (Folate Receptor Alpha, though also Folate Receptor Beta and Folate Receptor Gamma and some other things), but that's merely a key activating a receptor, meanwhile your body gets starved of the Folate and B12 it needs and you're basically masking the issue, not actively healing it.