Vitamin E

A Powerful Antioxidant

Vitamin E has an established role as an antioxidant and free radical scavenger. In addition to the effects that make Vitamin E nutritionally essential, scientific studies support that it may help to decrease the risk of heart disease and even certain cancers.

What is Vitamin E

Vitamin E is the name given to a group of fat soluble compounds. There are actually 8 naturally occurring chemical forms. These come in tocopherol and tocotrienol compounds.

Gamma tocopherol is the most common form of E vitamin in most of our diets, but the body uses the alpha tocopherol since it is a more biologically active form. Luckily it is the second most common form found in most of our diets.

Alpha-Tocopherol

This variant of vitamin E is a very good fat-soluble antioxidant that helps stop the production of reactive oxygen species formed when fat in your body undergoes oxidation.

This chemical compound protects the cell membranes from oxidation. Antioxidants, including alpha tocopherol, protect your cells by reducing the number of unshared electrons contained in free radicals.

Your body can be exposed to free radicals from natural biological events like converting food to energy and also environmental exposures to things like cigarette smoke, air pollution, and the sun's ultra violet radiation.

The concentrations of alpha tocopherol depend on your liver which regulates its intake after the various forms of vitamin E are absorbed in the small intestines.

Other Benefits

Vitamin E has also been shown to benefit you body in other ways.

• Studies have shown that it can benefit your immune system and boost immune function.
• It is involved in metabolic processes and gene expression.
• Vitamin E helps keep blood platelets from sticking to the interior walls of your blood vessels.

Supplementation

Vitamin E is another important piece of your total nutritional puzzle. Give your body the right amounts and it will function properly.

You can get vitamin E from a lot of different foods including

• Nuts and nut oils
• Green leafy vegetables
• Tomato products

just to name a few.

The problem is that most of us don't get enough of the veggies that we need everyday. And even those of us that do face the unrelenting fact that our food supply just doesn't pack the nutrient power it once did. Over farming, storage and shipping all contribute to this poor quality.

One good solution is a natural food source vitamin supplement. Taken daily these supplements can contribute to your diet and give it that extra boost it needs so you body gets what it requires to function at optimum levels.

Be sure to do your research and not get a synthetic vitamin substitute as it can actually do more harm than good. Look for a supplement that it provides all of the tocopherols, especially alpha and gamma-tocopherol. You won't find this in most over the counter products.

Is Vitamin E harmful?

There have been negative articles concerning vitamin E; however, recent reports show that Vitamin E is not only safe but can help reduce the risk of heart disease especially in women. (Click here for a report on some of these studies.)

Even the national Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Institute of Medicine which sets recommended dietary guidelines, have stated it is safe for adults to consume up to 1500 IU of natural (there is the catch word) vitamin E per day. You can go to the website for the Council on Responsible Nutrition and see they also question the negative conclusions reached by some researchers.

Wrap it all Up

To put it all in a nutshell, this is why Vitamin E is important.

Vitamin E is like a little sailboat that carries the nutrients to the farthest extremities; which means, it could help our heart, make the walls of the arteries more flexible and help circulation. It can help the lungs, the colon, the prostate, and also boost our immune function.

Vitamin E is an antioxidant so it also helps fight free radical cell damage.

It has been said, that what you see happening on the outside of your body is also happening on the inside. To me that means if your skin is wrinkled, damaged, dry, and unhealthy, so are the organs within the body.

Think about it.

Return from Vitamin E to HealthyLife Home Page