I don’t want to drag all of you reading this back to that awful time of trying to get a diagnosis for your loved one. Some of you might even be going through this now. Unfortunately, I am going to — but this story starts with a call with a bakery.

For those that don’t know, my day job is in digital marketing and I regularly have calls with clients to run through industry updates and performance. In this call, a client — a bakery — tells me they are working through recipe changes for the new incoming UK government mandate that bread made with white flour, from December 2026, must be fortified with Folic Acid.

Folic Acid.

This hits so many nerve endings for me I almost froze on the call. I’m pretty sure I mumbled and muffled my way through the remaining seven minutes of the call. Although my mind was back in my parent’s kitchen.

It had taken us at least six months, but in reality probably over a year, to convince mum to go to the doctor’s. We’d started noticing signs — a few misplaced items, struggling to find words to finish sentences, crumbling if anyone asked her a question. She was a shell. We hoped it was anxiety. We knew it wasn’t.

So after that appointment, we were chatting in the kitchen. I remember being perched on the kitchen counter, in the corner in front of the microwave like I normally am when we have long conversations. The doctor had prescribed mum a six month course of folic acid supplements. We raised an eyebrow.

I don’t think I’d ever heard of folic acid before this. It felt a little bit like being told to go to Holland and Barrett. It might just be the word “supplement” — that always invokes a sense of something to be taken alongside something else. But we were missing the something else. Six months of a supplement we’d never heard of to treat something we were pretty sure was dementia. How much of my mum would we lose while she takes 180 folic acid tablets?

Speaking to other families, we know this is a common first response from GPs. That six months of limbo, while my mum was essentially taking a vitamin, were the worst part of our dementia journey so far. How many other families are in this situation right now? They’re hearing the clock tick on their loved one’s ability to talk to them, or recognise them, all the while waiting for this six month experiment to be over so they can push for a true diagnosis. They’ve googled “folic acid” at 3am, they’ve skim read for “dementia” and they haven’t found anything. I know I didn’t.

So why is folic acid typically prescribed to people showing signs of dementia? There is actually a good reason, and it’s a reason GPs need to get better at explaining to families. Folic acid deficiency can cause brain fog, forgetfulness, confusion and even personality changes like increased irritability. If your loved one is suffering from fatigue and seems depressed, low folic acid can cause that too. My mum was tired, she was depressed, she was forgetful and confused. Giving her folic acid was probably the right move.

All we wanted was a bit more communication. Something like:

“Okay, so we’re going to prescribe you with a six month course of folic acid supplements. Low levels of folic acid can cause a lot of the symptoms you’re showing, the forgetfulness and fatigue especially. However, in tandem with this we are going to refer you to the memory clinic. I understand this can be scary but we’d rather start the ball rolling early rather than kick the can down the road. Do you have any questions?”

The lack of a timely referral to the memory clinic is one of the big sticking points for the families Dementia Life supports. Most people who turn up at the GP about memory problems are terrified. When a loved one is scared, when they suspect the worst — folic acid tablets just feels like delaying the inevitable.

I know this feeling. Every time I looked at the blister pack of folic acid by the kettle I saw six months of delay. Each popped pill was like a red cross on a calendar — one more day without seeing improvement in mum. One more day closer to confirming our initial suspicions.

Bread fortified with folic acid. The government is mandating it as a preventative measure — reducing the risk of Neural Tube Defects like spina bifida by ensuring higher levels of folic acid in pregnant women. That’s forward-thinking, proactive policy. But with folic acid and dementia, it’s being used reactively. It’s a holding pattern. A “here’s some supplements, come back in six months and we’ll start the real process.”

We’re still waiting to have the same level of proactive, timely service given to dementia. After all, it is only the UK’s biggest killer.