Deficiency Diseases and Good Nutrition
Vitamin E (tocopherol)
| C29H50O2 |
After this news hit the public, many concerned men started buying lots of vitamin E pills. Science has shown that your body will not work correctly without essential vitamin E (obviously), but it has not shown that amounts of E above and beyond what your body needs will help in all reproductive problems. Extra vitamins can only help your body when the reason for its problems is too little of that vitamin. There are many reasons for reproductive dysfunction, and very rarely is it because of a vitamin E deficiency.
Vitamin E got the name tocopherol from the Greek language; tokos meaning childbirth, and phero, meaning to bring forth. There are four forms of tocopherol: alpha, beta, gamma, and delta. Alpha tocopherol is the most active form, and is the most often measured in food content.
Vitamin E's main function is to act as an antioxidant. Every substance in your body is made of molecules, which are in turn made up of individual atoms connected by bonds. When a molecule is oxidized the double bond(s) between atoms is(are) broken, changing a double bond to a single bond. This leaves two open bonding sites for free radicals that contain oxygen. (A free radical is a natural by-product of enzymatic reactions, but they are still bad.) When free radicals bond with a molecule, it cannot work as effectively and will become useless much quicker. Vitamin E stops this from happening by gathering up the free radicals before they can damage your cells. Vitamin E keeps vitamin A, as well as many other nutrients, unoxidized in the digestive tract and body so they can work as efficiently as possible.
One of E's most important functions is to keep polyunsaturated fat (PUFA) from being oxidized. This is important because PUFA is a major part of every cell membrane in your body. When PUFA in cell membranes is oxidized, it makes the whole membrane much weaker. When this happens the cell becomes abnormally structured and cannot perform its functions to the best of its ability.
A cell can usually duplicate itself about 50 times. When you have a good amount of vitamin E in your body, cells can duplicate themselves many more times. Inadequate vitamin E is a big factor in the cause of premature aging. The first thing that happens in aging is your cells degrade because of oxidation. Then you get weird pigments that indicate the many damaged cells in your skin. Next, enzymes arise that dissolve the dysfunctional cells, which starts the collapse of metabolism. This whole process can be greatly postponed by a generous intake of vitamin E. Vitamin E greatly slows oxidation, which is the first stage of premature aging.
Vitamin E can also work as an antioxidant for your lungs. These days there are many pollutants in the air. These pollutants can be absorbed into your body from the lungs. Vitamin E is an antioxidant, collecting pollutants before they can harm your system. There are also many pollutants in the foods that we eat. Most processed foods are packed full of extremely harmful chemicals. Even fresh fruits and vegetables have dangerous pesticides on them. Meat contains many damaging hormones which are injected into the animals to make the animal mature and grow faster. This is verrrrrrry bad for you. On top of that, meat also is doped up with chemicals to preserve the freshness. Even water now contains numerous chemicals, like lead, sodium, and too much chlorine. Vitamin E helps your body take care of these hazardous chemicals, so they do as little damage as possible.
Now, before you go out and buy a bottle of vitamin E, let me tell you: vitamin E deficiency doesn't really exist. Unless your body doesn't properly absorb E, you don't need to worry about getting a deficiency. This is because vitamin E is fat soluble. Your body stores it with fat, which means you don't have to eat E every single day. (Water soluble vitamins are much more easily excreted and have to be eaten more often.) Fat soluble vitamins are not only coupled with fat in your body, but also in the food you eat. Americans eat a lot of fat, and some of this fat carries with it vitamin E. We get plenty of vitamin E without even trying. Even those who eat a very healthy, low fat diet, get enough vitamin E.
Because Americans are not even close to getting a deficiency in E, the RDA is based on the average American intake. You should also keep in mind that the more PUFA you eat the more vitamin E you will need. It is estimated that you will need 3-4 mg of vitamin E to keep the minimum amount of PUFA from being oxidized. Any extra vitamin E you eat, goes to perform its other functions, and hopefully not in protecting the extra PUFA's you're eating.
Vitamin E Requirements
Age Alpha-tocopherol equivalents
0.0-0.5 3 mg
0.5-1.0 4 mg
1-3 6 mg
4-10 7 mg
11+ (men) 10 mg
11+ (women) 8 mg
Pregnant 10 mg
Lactating
1st 6 months 12 mg
2nd 6 months 11 mg |
You can get your fill of vitamin E without even really trying.
Foods High in Vitamin E Wheat germ oil, 1 Tbls. 34.6 mg Chocolate covered almonds, 1/2 cups 14.3 mg Corn oil, 1 Tbls. 11-14 mg Soybean oil, 1 Tbls. 8.8-14 mg Sunflower oil, 1 Tbls. 8.5-8.8 mg Milk, nonfat or whole, 1 cup 7.6 mg Avocado, Florida, 1 4.0 mg Macaroni and cheese, 1 cup 3.5 mg Peas, cooked from fresh, 1 cup 3.4 mg Apricots, dried, 10 2.2 mg Olive oil, 1 Tbls. 1.8 mg Margarine, 1 Tbls. 1.6 mg Baked beans, canned with pork, 1 cup 1.5 mg Chocolate milk, plain, 1 oz. 1.4 mg Salmon, baked or broiled, 3 oz. 1.3 mg Mayonnaise, 1 Tbls. 1.0 mg Chicken, roasted, 5 oz. 0.8 mg Butter, 1 Tbls. 0.2 mg |
Vitamin E is the only vitamin I would advise you to buy in a bottle. Vitamin E not only heals your body from the inside out, but also from the outside in. It is absorbed through your skin very efficiently and is great for aiding your body in healing cuts, burns and many other ailments. A man covered in third degree burns healed with almost no scarring when vitamin E was administered orally and topically on his skin. (Vitamin E also helps to lessen the pain of burns.) A young girl was hit by a speeding bike and left her badly cut up all over her body. The doctors said she would have scars over her entire body. Her mother put vitamin E on all the cuts and she had NO scars. I have cured my own athletes foot by applying vitamin E to them every night for about a week. Vitamin E has been known to cure the symptoms and side effects of shingles. I'm sure that everyone has heard stories of how vitamin E has helped to reduce scarring. There is science behind the reasons vitamin E helps you heal. Vitamin E helps to limit the amount of infectious bacteria produced by helping the body cells defend themselves better. When your body doesn't have to put out so much energy to defend itself, it can use more of its energy to fix itself.
You should be careful when medicating yourself because it is possible to get a toxicity, though hard to do. Vitamin E works as a natural blood thinner, which is good considering it breaks up dangerous blood clots inside the body. When you take too much though, bleeding doesn't stop because the blood cannot clot. Once the large intake of the vitamin is discontinued, the bleeding will stop. Doses of 800 mg a day will probably not give you a toxicity, but remember, vitamins in high doses are not natural and are medical treatments. You should always consult your doctor before ingesting high doses of any vitamin.
Processing, cooking, and storing reduces the vitamin E content in foods. Oil is processed at very high temperatures. This kills much of the E. Different companies refine and heat their oils different amounts which explains why there are different vitamin E contents for oil originating from the same plant.