Vitamin E Information

What is Vitamin E?

Vitamin E is any of several fat soluble vitamins that are chemically tocopherols. Vitamin E is a popular and powerful antioxidant. Vitamin E is effective in preventing the oxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids. Additionally, Vitamin E is helpful in the prevention of oxidation in the lungs, where strong oxidizing agents nitrogen dioxide and ozone, components of air pollution, are particularly harmful to people exercising. Vitamin E protects white and red blood cells, helping the body's immune system.

For what, and how is Vitamin E used?

Vitamin E has received important recent attention with the release of two important Harvard Medical School studies which showed that the addition of 100IU or more of vitamin E per day resulted in a reduction by 40% of the risk of heart disease.1 In these studies, 125,000 health care professionals who did not have heart disease were followed for up to eight years. The addition of at least 400IU to 800IU per day has been shown to reduce the oxidation of blood lipids2,3, which would otherwise result in the build-up known as atherosclerosis. Vitamin E is also a powerful antioxidant who's antioxidant properties are enhanced by adding other antioxidants (selenium is a particularly good companion, as the combination produces glutathione peroxidase, an excellent antioxidant, protection from atherosclerosis and Alzheimer's disease4). This fact alone makes the addition of a Vitamin E supplement to your diet a good idea. If prevention of heart disease doesn't appeal to you, maybe this does: vitamin E deficiency can result in an increase of ceroid pigment deposits on the skin: age-spots.

Use vitamin E to: halt angina,5,6 protect the tissues of the skin, eye, calf muscles, and heart, inhibit tumour growth, prevent age spots, protect the lungs and other organs from the damage of free radicals.

The Lancet recently released in a widely popularized study that lack of Vitamin E was a more consistent predictor of heart disease than high cholesterol levels! The Lancet, one of the world's top medical journals, published their study (a randomized, placebo-controlled double-blind study) in their March 23, 1996 issue, results that indicated low levels of Vitamin E to be predictive of heart attacks 62% of the time, while high cholesterol was predictive only 29% of the time.