[Folic acid absorption in tropical enteropathy (author's transl)]

Folic acid absoprtion was measured in 45 patients before and after folic acid treatment by means of a folate tolerance test in serum and red-blood-cell-folate. 10 healthy men recently returned from the tropics volunteered as controls. There is no significant difference in the folate-tolerance tests in serum. The difference is significant however in the red-blood-cell-folate, which is markedly lower with the patients before treatment and raises after folate-treatment to the normal value of the control group. As the transport of folic acid in the mucosa follows two steps it is taken that the disturbance is localized in the hydrolysis of polyglutamate to monoglutamate-folic acid.