Folate, also known as folic acid, is one of eight essential B vitamins needed within your body. Folic acid is necessary for red blood cell formation and growth and works with vitamin B12 and vitamin C to help the body break down, use and create new proteins. Folic acid helps produce DNA within your body. Folic acid helps with cellular and tissue growth and can help prevent birth defects during pregnancy. A number of causes can contribute to a folic acid deficiency.
Medications
Certain medications can lead to a severe deficiency of folic acid, known as folate-deficiency anemia. Phenytoin, a drug used for seizures, as well as methotrexate, an anti-folate drug used in the treatment of such diseases as cancer and rheumatoid arthritis, can both cause a folate deficiency. Alcohol, sulfasalazine, pyrimethamine, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole and barbiturates can also lead to folic acid deficiencies, according to MedlinePlus.
Malabsorption Syndromes
Your body absorbs B vitamins in the small intestine. Celiac disease, a disorder that occurs when the body cannot tolerate a substance found in wheat, rye and barley, can cause a folate deficiency. When a person eats gluten, it sets off an immune response that causes damage to the villi, the small fingerlike protrusions within the small intestines that absorb food, making absorption of necessary vitamins impossible. Crohn's disease can also cause a lack of vitamin absorption due to a chronic inflammation of the bowels. People with malabsorption syndromes often require lifelong vitamin injections.
Pregnancy
Women need 400mcg of folic acid every day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in order to prevent major birth defects of the baby's brain and spine. Folic acid, during pregnancy, is used to make the extra blood your body needs. Women should take folic acid prior to getting pregnant because neural tube defects commonly develop within the first 28 days of pregnancy, according to the American Pregnancy Association, which explains that an absence of folic acid during pregnancy can increase the risk of your baby developing spina bifida, a condition where the spinal cord is exposed, as well as anencephaly, severe underdevelopment of the brain.
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