Vitamin E What To Do
Have any of you heard about the Vitamin E controversy? In USA Today an article appeared on November 11th that linked the ingestion of Vitamin E supplements to an increased risk of mortality. That news sent the nutritional community scrambling to determine the efficacy of the study mentioned. I know I first thought that this is some trumpet up nonsense to place fear of using Vitamin E supplementation to improve ones health.
At first I was very skeptical, but after reviewing the article I became more convinced that the researchers were on to something.
The study was done to find out why in epidemiological studies people who took Vitamin E supplements seemed to reduce their risk of most degenerative diseases. When Vitamin E was studied in the laboratory those findings never bore out. The study just released said “High dosage of vitamin E supplements may increase all-cause mortality and should be avoided” The article lists the dosage at greater than 150IU daily. Most of us taking vitamin E supplements usually take amounts greater than 150 IU. After examining the study more closely and looking at other studies concerning the effectiveness of vitamin E I have concluded that there is more to this story then meets the eye.
Lets take I closer look at vitamin E and its biological effects. Vitamin E is really a term used to combine eight naturally occurring compounds. There are four tocopherols and four tocotrienols they make up the total effects of what is referred to as vitamin E. The major tocopherol is known as alpha although there are significant amounts of gamma found in the total. This where the story gets interesting.
The published study looked at supplements that only contained alpha tocopherol. They never looked at supplements that contained all of the tocopherol fractions. In research done by some of the world’s leading authorities it has been concluded that taking alpha tocopherol by itself certainly could cause inflammatory reactions throughout the body leading to an increase in mortality. When however gamma tocopherol is added to the supplement the benefits of vitamin E are seen. When vitamin E was first studied back in the 1950's whole fractions of the vitamin were used. But since then because of price concerns many people cheaper vitamin E supplements that either did not contain any gamma tocopherol or had very little. The feeling among researchers is that the alpha gamma ratio should be 1:1. That is how they are found in nature. So don’t panic, if you are taking a vitamin E supplement make sure that it has that 1:1 ration. If you need more information on how to find such a product please e-mail me . That’s all for now!
Posted
by Dr. Steven Felder
