We can't find evidence that holds up here. Proponents are reasoning from mechanism or analogy rather than direct human data, and the most credible skeptics raise objections we can't dismiss.
Folic acid doesn't occur in nature. It's tetrahydroofolate. Then your body has to use an enzyme called dihydropholate reductase to turn folic acid into tetrahydroofolate. And a lot of that folic acid or some of that folic acid can end up as un metabolized folic acid in the human body. There's evidence that it can competitively inhibit the binding of actual usable folate to the folate receptor. So it's important that people don't use folic acid.
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So, you don't want folic acid in your supplements, in your bread, any of these things.
If you're eating a bread and it has folic acid in the ingredients, you don't want that bread because folic acid is not a form of folate that occurs in nature. Folic acid is a synthetic form of folate that has to be turned into dihydropholate, tetrahydroofolate in your body, which uses dihydropholate reductase. That enzyme can get saturated. Then you have un metabolized folic acid in your body. Higher levels of un metabolized folic acid are associated with issues in kids, behavioral issues, developmental issues in kids. and they could potentially block the actions of folate, usable folate, bioavailable folate at the receptor in your body.
The problem with folic acid is that it's a form of folate humans don't do well with. It's not found in nature. A lot of times it leads to unmetabolized folic acid in the body, which is consistently associated with negative outcomes in babies and kids whose mothers have higher levels in the cord blood or kids who have higher levels of unmetabolized folic acid in the blood.