ReviewNutrients2025
The Shuttling of Methyl Groups Between Folate and Choline Pathways.
Review in Nutrients, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Interpretation of Pharmacometabolomics Results: Fingerprint of Drug Exposure or Confounder Effects? Insights from a Urinary Metabolomics Study with Voriconazole in Healthy Participants.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Trial
- Betaine in Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease: Mechanisms of Action and Therapeutic Potential.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Prenatal Choline and Betaine Differentially Program Adult Hepatic One-Carbon Metabolism in Wistar Rats.Journal of agricultural and food chemistry · 2026Article
- Choline and Its Companions: Inter-Related Roles of Choline and B Vitamins in Fetal Development and Offspring Health.Nutrients · 2026Review
- Choline, a nexus for neurocognitive nutrients: A narrative review.Nutrition research (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Review
- Complementary hyperpolarizedNpj imaging · 2026Article
- Association Between Folic Acid Use and Serum One-Carbon Metabolism-Related Metabolites in Maternal and Cord Blood of Japanese Pregnant Women.Metabolites · 2026Article
- Development of ovine hepatic organoids: a powerfulFrontiers in veterinary science · 2026Article
- Review
- Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Methyl groups can be obtained either from the diet (labile methyl groups) or produced endogenously (methylneogenesis) via one-carbon (C1-) metabolism as S-adenosylmethionine (SAM). The essential nutrients folate and choline (through betaine) are metabolically entwined to feed their methyl groups into C1-metabolism. A choline-deficient diet in rats produces a 31-40% reduction in liver folate content, 50% lower hepatic SAM levels, and a doubling of plasma homocysteine. Similarly, folate deficiency results in decreased total hepatic choline. Thus, sufficient intakes of both folate and choline (or betaine) contribute to safeguarding the methyl balance in the body. A significant amount of choline (as phosphatidylcholine) is produced in the liver via the SAM-dependent phosphatidylethanolamine methyltransferase. Experimental studies using diets deficient in several methyl donors have shown that supplemental betaine was able to rescue not only plasma betaine but also plasma folate. Fasting plasma homocysteine concentrations are mainly determined by folate intake or status, while the effect of choline or betaine on fasting plasma homocysteine is minor. This appears to contradict the finding that approximately 50% of cellular SAM is provided via the betaine-homocysteine methyltransferase (BHMT) pathway, which uses dietary choline (after oxidation to betaine) or betaine to convert homocysteine to methionine and then to SAM. However, it has been shown that the relative contribution of choline and betaine to cellular methylation is better reflected by measuring plasma homocysteine after a methionine load test. Choline or betaine supplementation significantly lowers post-methionine load homocysteine, whereas folate supplementation has a minor effect on post-methionine load homocysteine concentrations. This review highlights the interactions between folate and choline and the essentiality of choline as a key player in C1-metabolism. We further address some areas of interest for future work.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.