Vitamin E

There’s been recently some news about how Vitamin E taken as a supplement might be bad for you because a study found slight increase in mortality in a group that took the standard 400 IU daily dosage.  Laura has an excellent and detailed critique of this study on Turtle Way, and rightly points out that the study means very little, and doesn’t prove or even suggest anything except possibly that taking a Vitamin E supplement might not have a significant effect on increasing a person’s longevity.  Even, that, though, I fear, can’t be extrapolated.

One issue that Laura doesn’t go into, and which I think few outside of biochemists and experts in the field of supplements will even be aware of is that of the complexity of what we call “Vitamin E.”  The Linus Pauling Institute has a terrific synopsis of the different subcomponents of Vitamin E for those interested, but suffice it to say that the most common is Alpha Tocopherol, and its been shown to actually deplete the other subcomponents of Vitamin E, so the natural form that Vitamin E comes when you eat food is not duplicated and may even be compromised by consuming synthetic supplements, unless you get a brand that can show it consists of a mixture of the subcomponents. So it is likely the study participants were consuming mostly synthetic Alpha Tocopherol and so this might have had an effect.  Then again, as Laura pointed out, the numbers really aren’t scientifically significant.

Finally, there are times when Vitamin E has been shown to be harmful, in particular when doses larger than 2000 IU, but also when it’s combined with certain drugs such as anticoagulants (blood thinners).  And if that weren’t enough you also have the variable of diet.  Vitamin E is, like most vitamins, fat-soluble, which means that without fat it’s not going to be absorbed as well or at all.  So if you don’t consume it with fat, or you consume low amounts of fat (such as on a low-fat diet), then your absorption of E, whether it is a synthetic supplement or naturally from food, is compromised.  This is why many Vitamin E supplements on the market are in capsule form that also contains oil, but not all of them are. 

So, Laura’s point still holds in that there is just not a statistically significant number to take this study seriously as proving or even suggesting much of anything.  Not only that, but there are so many other variables involved that even if there was such a difference, you wouldn’t be able to separate out most of these variables since in the study they just aren’t noted in the data.  Then again, this has not prevented scientists from asserting that a study suggested one thing or another in the past.

Vitamin E is an essential micronutrient and has been shown to improve many risk factors, but as with anything else, you shouldn’t just buy a pill off the shelf (or accept one from your doctor) without doing any research.  Not only could you be taking something that would make the Vitamin ineffective or worse dangerous, but there are also different kinds substances that too often the media dumbs down because they don’t think the public can handle anything with the least amount of complexity.  Getting into details seems too nerdy and not easily digestible (no pun intended) in a two-paragraph blurb or a 30-second sound-bite-like report on the evening news.  Do your own research!  Google is your friend!

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