Summary
Not again! A new analysis, in which the data from many prior studies were pooled, suggests modest harm from taking 400 IU (international units) or more of vitamin E per day, and certainly no hint of any benefit. If people get the sense that nutrition science is unreliable -- and I believe that view may already prevail -- then nutrition recommendations tend to be ignored. I caution strongly against this. We are far from clueless about the basic care and feeding of Homo sapiens, and in general, our dietary guidelines are very solid. It's when we go looking for silver bullets, shortcuts and magic in a capsule that we tend to get ourselves into trouble. Vitamin E is a fat soluble nutrient, found naturally in nuts, seeds, wheat germ, fish and vegetable oils. The recommended intake for adults is roughly 20-30 IU per day, whereas the average intake in the U.S. is about 15 IU. Since we often take in less than the recommended dose of vitamin E, the rationale for supplementation seems clear enough.
But it would only take 10, 20 or 30 IU from a supplement for the average adult to exceed the recommended daily intake. This is provided in most multivitamins, with so-called "high potency" multivitamins providing quite a bit more. The isolated vitamin E supplements, however, generally provide 20-50 times the recommended daily intake, based on the belief, and hope, that more antioxidant power is always a good thing. It probably is not, and that's the first lesson here. Just because some of a thing is good, it does not mean more is better. Getting enough vitamin E is vital for good health; consuming boatloads may just sink your ship. Another important consideration is that nutrients in foods are never isolated. Vitamin E from dietary sources always comes packaged with unsaturated oils. It may well be that the company any vitamin keeps influences its behavior. The combination of more vitamin E and more unsaturated oils, particularly omega-3 fatty acids, may confer benefits that vitamin E cannot confer alone. I have long suspected that the doses of vitamin E in wide use are excessive, and not because of any special insight.See the full content of this document
Extract
Modest Dose of Vitamin E Goes a Long Way
Rather, I turn consistently to evolutionary biology to help fill in gaps lef...
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