Vitamin Supplements

Vitamin E Health Merits

Keeping up with all of the recent research into the potential health benefits of vitamin E is difficult. The impressive findings of the best of this research, however, are impossible to ignore.

Vitamin E against Cancer

A growing body of research indicates that vitamin E can provide protection against a variety of cancers, including oral, lung, cervical, and breast cancers. For example, an eight-year Finnish study of 36,265 adults concluded that individuals with low blood levels of alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E) were 1.5 times more likely to develop cancer than people with higher amounts.

Skeptics point to vitamin E research that has not shown protective effects against cancer. Even some of these reports, however, have found that cancer-free people have higher blood levels of vitamin E than individuals with cancer, although the differences may not be great enough to have what researchers call “statistical significance.”

Why might vitamin E play a role in preventing cancer? Several mechanisms may be at work, but vitamin E’s role as an antioxidant is probably at the forefront. Vitamin E appears to be able to neutralize the potentially damaging free radicals formed in the body as part of the process in which cells use oxygen. In addition, this vitamin apparently blocks formation of cancer-promoting compounds (carcinogens) called nitrosamines, and it can stimulate the body’s disease-battling immune system.

How Much Vitamin E Do You Need?

Vitamin E requirements vary according to two factors: (1) the body size of the individual and (2) the amount of polyunsaturated fats the individual consumes. Vitamin E is necessary to protect polyunsaturated fats in bodily tissues from oxidation. Thus, the more polyunsaturates in the diet, the greater the need for vitamin E.

Because of these individual differences, specific vitamin E recommendations for the population at large are difficult to make. The Recommended Dietary Allowances on the preceding are general guidelines based on averages for healthy individuals.

Optimal Daily Vitamin E Allowance

Serious deficiencies of vitamin E are rare in the United States, so the primary consideration in choosing a dose of this vitamin is promotion of optimal health. Studies clearly show that doses far above the RDAs have beneficial health effects. High doses can reduce the risks of chronic disease and improve functioning of the immune system, among other things.

Vitamin E Food Sources

Vitamin E is available in both animal and plant products. As a rule, plant products contain more vitamin E than animal products do. In addition, meats from animals that have diets high in fat may also be good sources of vitamin E, but because of their high fat content, you’re better off finding vitamin E in plants.

What are the best sources of vitamin E? Vegetable and seed oils (such as sunflower, soybean, and cottonseed) are all particularly rich in vitamin E, but the distribution of vitamin E compounds differs from one type of oil to another. While the vitamin E content of safflower oil is 90 percent alpha-tocopherol (the most biologically active of the vitamin E compounds), for example, corn oil has just 10 percent alpha-tocopherol. Other good sources of vitamin E are green leafy vegetables, liver, whole grains, wheat germ, butter, margarine, egg yolk, and nuts.

Remember that cooking can deplete vitamin E content. Cooking for long periods of time at high temperatures can destroy the vitamin E in oils.

How Much Vitamin E Are You Getting?

Before you decide that you need to take vitamin supplements or change the way you eat, you should know where you stand and how much improvement you really need. To help you analyze your current diet, we’ve developed a system you can use to calculate your approximate vitamin E intake. Following is a list of common food sources of vitamin E, arranged according to the percentage of our Optimal Daily Allowance of vitamin E contained in them. From our ODA range for vitamin E of 100 to 400 IU, we have chosen the more conservative dose (100 IU) as a yardstick in preparing these guidelines.

To determine your average daily intake of vitamin E, start by keeping an accurate food diary for three or four days. The longer you keep the diary, the more accurate your calculations will be. Write down exactly what you eat and drink, together with an estimate of the serving size. Don’t concern yourself with precisely how much vitamin E each food item contains; simply use the chart to find the food item and the percentage of the ODA that it provides. Then add up the percentages to see if you reach 100 percent each day.

If a particular item in your meals is missing from this list (it would be impossible for us to include every food item here), use the nutritional information on the food packaging. Most packaged foods are required to list their vitamin contents on the label.

After you’ve determined how much vitamin E you are obtaining from your diet each day, you can calculate whether you need to take supplements to reach the ODA. Remember that this chart uses 100 IU as the ODA, so if your ODA falls elsewhere in our recommended range (from 100 to 400 IU), you will need to take that into account when calculating percentages. An 8 ounce glass of milk provides 5 percent of an ODA of 100 IU, for example; if you’ve decided that your ODA should be 200 or 400 IU, that glass of milk meets only 2.5 or 1.25 percent of your optimal dose, respectively.

After you’ve determined how much vitamin E you are obtaining through your diet, you can calculate whether you need to take supplements to reach the ODA. Let’s say that you determine that you are getting 20 percent of your vitamin E target of 100 IU through diet alone. You are consuming 20 IU of vitamin E in your diet (20 percent x 100 IU = 20 IU). To make up the difference, we would advise you to supplement your diet with 80 IU of vitamin E in tablet form (100 IU — 20 IU = 80 IU).

Because vitamin E is commonly sold in doses of 100, 200, 400, or 1,000 IU, you may have difficulty finding a supplement in the precise amount you want. We recommend that you come as close as you can to your target without combining or cutting up tablets to make the dose come out even. In the case we’ve described, for example, we advise going a little higher than your 80 IU needs, and taking a 100 IU tablet, which will more than meet your optimal requirements without posing any risks.

More about: Vitamin Nutrition and Health supplement, Vitamin E Health Merits, Protection against Cancer, Daily Allowance, Food Resource

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