The Folic Acid Conspiracy - I'm think I'm standing on the edge of a rabbit hole.

So I'm just beginning my journey on this but I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a rabbit hole and I'm curious where it leads. I'm just wondering if anyone else here knows anything they can contribute to help me with discovery.

So a couple of years ago I learned that there is a thing called a MTHFR gene mutation that causes a person to be unable to process folic acid and I learned that I may have it (The story of how I learned this is interesting but unimportant for now. If anyone asks in the comments I'll tell it.)

The terms folic acid and folate are used interchangeably in food ingredient labels but they are not the same thing. Folic acid is man-made while folate is naturally occurring. (I think it's way more complicated that that but that's just my understanding for now)

I started taking a supplement for natural folate and didn't think too much more of it after that. But for at least the last 15 years I've always felt sluggish, groggy or foggy headed after eating "carbs." I just decided that it was related "being in ketosis" and that "carbs made me feel like crap" and that's just how that was.

But a chance conversation with a client of mine revealed that he too has this mutation and that he has learned to avoid folic acid. He buys organic bread and pasta from Italy that is made without "fortified" wheat. He explained that with this mutation it isn't enough to just supplement your folate, you have to also actively avoid folic acid.

Well, I went and got some of the pasta he recommended and some organic bread. I had a big meal of carbs that would ordinary have me groggy on the couch of for the rest of the night, but I felt NOTHING. I was zero percent "groggified." I couldn't believe it! This was the fist time in over a decade where I was able to eat a big bowl of carbs and feel totally fine after. After a couple of days of avoiding folic acid and supplementing I was feeling more clearheaded than I had in years.

So I started researching it a bit more and looking into forums for people with this mutation and there were tons of people saying they had symptoms of depression, ADHD and even autism symptoms COMPLETELY DISAPPEAR when they started avoiding folic acid and supplementing with the proper kind of folate. One lady who was 41 said her mind totally cleared of all the issues she was having and she feels like a 16 year old again. (Just anecdotal of course but there were lots of people saying the same thing.)

So then I started looking in to what foods have folic acid and this is where the conspiracy comes in. Turns out that ALL grain products and any kind of wheat are MANDATED BY LAW to have folic acid added to them, unless they are labelled "organic."

Now why is that? Because at some time someone apparently discovered that lack of folic acid can lead to something called neural tube birth defects in children, so they ordered all grains to be sprayed with folic acid.

Now this struck me as odd when you consider that those who are pregnant could just supplement themselves with folic acid. Why should the government step in and force ALL people eating ALL grains to ALWAYS get folic acid.

What gets even crazier is that this MTHFR mutation is NOT uncommon! Chat GPT tells me estimates are between 20% to as high as 60% of the population has it!

So the government is forcing something like half the population of the country to consume something daily or, for a lot of people eating grains, like 3 meals a day, to consume something that their bodies cannot handle and apparently cause bad side effects.

So I am going to research this further but I was looking to see if anyone else has looked into it. My big questions are: if folic acid can have these far-reaching neurological effects, could it be responsible for the rise of mental illness in the population? Could this be the cause of the rise in autism? That seems pretty reasonable as a hypothesis to me . If the lack of it causes neural tube defects, and half the population can't absorb the synthetic version, is that causing autism as a birth defect in children? That would explain why autism seems to run in families.

Does anyone else have experience with this and can they shed any light on what I am discovering here?