"but looking up folic acid overdose comes up with nothing."
That's 'cuse there really is no reported toxicity of folic acid. It's water soluble and not very stable. I've read homocysteine studies giving 8mg/day (10x the USRDA)[1] of Folic acid to people for 6month with no adverse side-effects. The UL of 1000mcg/day is mainly because high folate can mask the symptoms of B12 deficiency.
Here's an abstract from a study done on a 5mg folate/5mL:
A double blind study was designed to determine the effects of folate mouthwash (MW) on established gingivitis in non-pregnant adults. 60 subjects who had >20 teeth, visible gingival inflammation around >6 teeth, no complicated medical history, currently not receiving periodontal treatment or medication, and not wearing dentures, were randomly assigned to control or experimental groups. Full mouth assessment included plaque scores, gingival colour changes, bleeding tendency around every tooth and experience of disease and local factors. Subjects used 5 ml of MW twice daily for 4 weeks, rinsing for 1 min before expectorating. Experimental MW contained 5 mg folate per 5 ml. The control group used a placebo MW. A detailed 3-day diet record was kept by each subject. The oral examination was repeated after 4 weeks. Initially, groups were similar except that the experimental group exhibited more bleeding sites at the outset, but after 4 weeks, the experimental group showed a significant decrease in mean number of colour change sites (from 70.17 ±12.89 to 56.62 ±17.42) and in bleeding sites (from 48.59 ±24.28 to 29.28 ±19.64) compared with control group (colour: from 66.93±15.27 to 66.20± 18.83; bleeding: from 36.93±16.96 to 39.47± 16.67)p<0.001. Dietary analysis showed that few subjects ate >200,μg folate daily. However, the level of dietary folate did not correlate with changes in inflammation in experimental subjects, r=0.097. Folate MW appears to have an influence on gingival health through local rather than systemic influence.
Siobhan, I can lend you my university account if you want to browse around the literature for more info. If you come across one that the university doesn't carry, you can send me the reference and I can get the PDF from work. jv
Folic Acid
That's 'cuse there really is no reported toxicity of folic acid. It's water soluble and not very stable. I've read homocysteine studies giving 8mg/day (10x the USRDA)[1] of Folic acid to people for 6month with no adverse side-effects. The UL of 1000mcg/day is mainly because high folate can mask the symptoms of B12 deficiency.
Here's an abstract from a study done on a 5mg folate/5mL:
A double blind study was designed to determine the effects of folate mouthwash (MW) on established gingivitis in non-pregnant adults. 60 subjects who had >20 teeth, visible gingival inflammation around >6 teeth, no complicated medical history, currently not receiving periodontal treatment or medication, and not wearing dentures, were randomly assigned to control or experimental groups. Full mouth assessment included plaque scores, gingival colour changes, bleeding tendency around every tooth and experience of disease and local factors. Subjects used 5 ml of MW twice daily for 4 weeks, rinsing for 1 min before expectorating. Experimental MW contained 5 mg folate per 5 ml. The control group used a placebo MW. A detailed 3-day diet record was kept by each subject. The oral examination was repeated after 4 weeks. Initially, groups were similar except that the experimental group exhibited more bleeding sites at the outset, but after 4 weeks, the experimental group showed a significant decrease in mean number of colour change sites (from 70.17 ±12.89 to 56.62 ±17.42) and in bleeding sites (from 48.59 ±24.28 to 29.28 ±19.64) compared with control group (colour: from 66.93±15.27 to 66.20± 18.83; bleeding: from 36.93±16.96 to 39.47± 16.67)p<0.001. Dietary analysis showed that few subjects ate >200,μg folate daily. However, the level of dietary folate did not correlate with changes in inflammation in experimental subjects, r=0.097. Folate MW appears to have an influence on gingival health through local rather than systemic influence.
Siobhan, I can lend you my university account if you want to browse around the literature for more info. If you come across one that the university doesn't carry, you can send me the reference and I can get the PDF from work.
jv
jv