1. Methylfolate Helps The Body Make SAMe
So SAMe is one of the main donors of the methyl groups too many methyl transferase enzymes. If you don't know enzymes are basically proteins that help your body or assist your body in performing different reactions. So let's use an analogy. If you have a bunch of plastic and you are making cups the machine has to make the cups. Well the machine is what takes that that plastic and turns it into the cups. So the machine is like the enzyme.
Methyltransferases actually help transfer the methyl group to other molecules so it's very biologically active substance. The methyl group is basically CH3. A carbon molecule and three hydrogen's and then it's bound on to whatever molecule it might be like methionine to make SAMe.
SAMe with the help of the methyltransferase enzymes donate that methyl group to other things. In the process of doing that it may help your body produce creatine, for instance. Creatine is very important for energy production and recycling it quickly. Recycling or generating energy when you are at the anaerobic threshold. Like when you are running for a long time, doing a single rep max on the bench press or squat. Creatine kicks in and produces energy very quickly and that's important for brain function and muscle function. It's happening all over our bodies all the time we just don't know about it. If you don't have enough methylfolate you don't have enough SAMe and you won't be able to make sufficient amount of creatine. This could lead to fatigue and muscle weakness.
It also helps with cell membrane production. Specifically it helps with the production of phospholipids. All of our cells are made up of basically a fatty outer surface, a 3 dimensional kind of ball. You can think of it like a marble. Your cells are basically thousands of these little marbles that make up the cell membranes, called phospholipids. SAMe helps the enzyme phosphatidylethanolamine methyltransferase to make these phospholipids. It is the cofactor for that methyltransferase enzyme. So if you don't have enough methylfolate you're not going be able to produce your cell membranes efficiently. This could affect your ability to recover from injured tissue. Any kind of injury or tissue damage will require phospholipids to rebuild that tissue. Without SAMe the recovery could be slowed.
There is also DNA methyltransferases that help with the DNA repair and DNA support.
2. Methylfolate Helps The Body Make Neurotransmitters
SAMe can also help the body with recycling of biopterin but mainly it's methylfolate itself and two other enzymes QDPR and DHFR helps with the recycling of biopterin. This molecule biopterin is essential for making neurotransmitters (like serotonin, dopamine, etc) from amino acids and making nitric oxide.
So if you don't have enough methylfolate you're perhaps will not be able to recycle your biopterin. Biopterin is not currently a molecule that you can just take either. Your body produces it and your body recycles it. So recycling is important and methylfolate is helps your body do this.
3. Methylfolate Helps The Body Make DNA Base Pairs
The last aspect to discuss is the production of DNA. DNA is produced from base pairs. On your double helix DNA structure, the ladder shape is made up of the DNA base pairs bonded together. One rung of the ladder is two base pairs together. A base pair are the nucleotides adenine, guanosine thiamine, cytosine. These are what our DNA is made of and needed to make our cells. If are not able to make these base pairs you won't have enough DNA for new cell growth. This will slow tissue growth and lead to things like hair loss or thinning. It can also manifest as anemia.