What is and how do we use vitamin E

Vitamins are part of the list of macronutrients, vitamin E is a vitamin that humans need to consume trough diet to have a proper health. Without vitamin E we couldn’t live, but don't worry its deficiency is very rare.

What is vitamin E

Vitamin E is a group of fat-soluble molecules, specifically four tocopherols and four tocotrienols, the most famous and the one which is added to food products is alpha-tocopherol. The reason why alpha-tocopherol is the most important is because is the one that has more biology activity, this means it is the most effective doing what is meant to do.

Alfa-tocopherol. By Calvero. - Selfmade with ChemDraw.

Vitamin E functions

The main functions (1) known to date are the following:

• Antioxidant: the formation of free radicals is pretty normal in the body. These free radicals oxidize the body and are the main culprit of aging. Even though we think in grey hair and wrinkles when we say aging, aging is the damage of the tissues, that's why old people tend to have several illnesses such as diabetes or hypertension. That's why it's important to have enough antioxidants like vitamin E to balance the oxidation and live better and longer.
• Anti-mutagens: as if we didn’t have enough with free radical, we also have to worry about mutagens. These substances cause genetic mutations that damage DNA. It seems that gamma-tocopherol catches these mutagens in some kind of compartments so they can’t damage proteins, fats and cell DNA.
• Cell signalling: cells communicate information one to each other through signals, vitamin E interferes in some of the mechanism to generate those signals.

Vitamin E has other functions, but these are the three most known. If you want to know more about its functions, then read the references 1 and 2 (you can find them at the end of this post)

Deficiency

Vitamin E deficiency is very rare and is related to either genetical problems or digestive issues, mainly bad absorption of nutrients.

Absorption

Vitamin E is absorber in the intestines, here it attaches to chylomicrons. Chylomicrons are fat particles, lipoproteins like LDL or HDL but bigger, to have chylomicrons you need to eat FAT. To absorber vitamin E and other fat-soluble vitamins properly you need to eat fat, it’s useless to eat these vitamins without fat. Thanks to chylomicrons vitamin E travels through the portal vein (a vain that connects the intestines and the liver) and finally reaches the liver. The absorption is between 51% and 86%, the rest is excreted in the faeces. Imagine you eat a handful of sunflower seeds that contain about 10 mg of vitamin E, that means you only absorb between 5 and 8 mg, the rest will end up in your toilet.

Sources

Best sources of vitamin E are nuts, unfortunately nuts are also a source of some antinutrients like phytates and inflammatory fats (omega-6), so eat them in moderation and always in their natural form not in oils. Sunflower seeds and almonds are the ones with the highest content in vitamin E. In animal products it's found in fats like yolks, butter, animal fat, remember that animal products from grass fed animals are always more nutritious and contain more vitamin A and E (3)

Values by 100 g

• Sunflower seeds: 26.1 mg
• Almonds: 25.6 mg
• Hazelnuts: 17.5 mg
• Non pasture raised egg yolks: 2.38 mg
• Grain fed butter: 2.32 mg
• Grain fed beef: 0.8–2.92 mg*
• Grass fed beef: 2.1–4.5 mg*

Unfortunately I couldn’t find the vitamin E values for organic grass fed butter and pasture raised chicken eggs.

*These values were taken are from reference 3

Scientific references

1. Brigelius-Flohé, R., & Traber, M. G. (1999). Vitamin E: function and metabolism. The FASEB Journal, 13(10), 1145–1155. doi: 10.1096/fasebj.13.10.1145
2. Traber, M. G., & Packer, L. (1995). Vitamin E: beyond antioxidant function. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 62(6), 1501S–1509S. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/62.6.1501s
3. Cynthia A Daley, Amber Abbott, Patrick S Doyle, Glenn A Nader, Stephanie Larson. A review of fatty acid profiles and antioxidant content in grass-fed and grain-fed beef. Daley et al. Nutrition Journal 2010, 9:10. doi: 10.1186/1475-2891-9-10