Folate Absorption and Malabsorption

Abstract

FOLATE deficiency, probably the most common vitamin deficiency in this country, often occurs as a complication of gastrointestinal disease or of therapy with certain drugs. Like several other vitamins, folate exists in a variety of natural forms, and the study of folic acid represents a fascinating chapter in medical history. After its basic structure was described in 1945,¹ more than a dozen previously identified and seemingly unrelated growth principles or antianemia factors, including Wills's "new hematopoietic principle," observed in 1931, factors R and S and vitamins M, B_c, B₁₀ and B₁₁, were recognized as free . . .