A poor diet is the most common cause of folate-deficiency anaemia. Your body can't store folate for long periods of time. This means that you need to eat foods with folate. Other causes of folate-deficiency anaemia include certain medicines that can interfere with your folate levels, e. g some anti-epilepsy medicines and methotrexate (used to treat rheumatoid arthritis). Too much alcohol can reduce your body's ability to use folate, coeliac disease or an inflammatory bowel disease, e. g Crohn's disease, can interfere with folate absorption. Also certain blood conditions that cause a faster turnover of red blood cells, e. g thalassaemia and haemolytic anaemia and pregnancy, as women require extra folate to meet the needs of their baby, increases the risk.
Attribution: BUPA