Dr. Chheda – 🧬 You may have heard a lot about leucovorin recently, especially if you have a child with autism. What is leucovorin? Leucovorin is folinic acid. It is vitamin B9.

So let’s back up a little bit. Vitamin B9 is folate. Folate is found naturally in foods like broccoli and kidney beans. Folic acid is the synthetic form that is found in supplemented foods like breads – it’s supplemented with folic acid.

Now both folate and folic acid you ingest, and then the body converts it into methylfolate. Methylfolate is the active form that goes into the brain to help with the nervous system developing appropriately.

Leucovorin is folinic acid. It is a medical supplement that also goes into the brain to help with nervous system development. Now whether you take folinic acid, leucovorin, or whether you take methylfolate, which is a supplement that you can buy over the counter, both of them can go into the brain and help with nervous system development.

Now does your child with autism need any one of these? Not everybody does. There are tests that you can do to see: does your child need folinic acid? Do they have the receptors? Are they receptor deficient? Or do they have the enzyme, the methylfolate, the MTHFR enzyme that actually helps with the conversion? If they have the receptor, if they have the enzyme, you don’t necessarily have to give them any extra supplementation. But if they don’t, the supplementation may definitely help.

Discuss this with your pediatrician. Here at Harmony Pediatrics, we offer an individualized approach and we can do the testing.