Vitamin E level

Tanner, A.R., Bantock, K.I., Hinks, L., Lloyd, B., Turner, N.R. and Wri t, R. (1986). Depressed selenium and vitamin E levels in an alcoholic population. Possible relationship to hepatic injury through increased lipid peroxidation. D. Dis. Sci. 31, 1307-1312. 

Epidemiological studies in Europe reveal an inverse relationship between plasma vitamin E levels and the incidence of ischaemic heart disease (Gey and Puska 1989), and the risk of angina pectoris appears to increase with low plasma levels of vitamins E, A and C (Rie-mersma et al., 1991). These interesting observations require further population-based controlled intervention trials with specific supplements of antioxidant vitamins (Gey etal., 1991). 

Dorough. Effects of cigarette smoke and dietary vitamin E levels on selected lung and hepatic biotransformation enzymes in mice. Drug Nutr Interact 1985 3(4) 213-222. 

Frank, J., Eliasson, C., Leroy-Nivard, D., Budek, A., Lundh, T., Vessby, B., Aman, P., and Kamal-Eldin, A., Dietary secoisolariciresinol diglucoside and its oligomers with 3-hydroxy-3-methyl glutaric acid decrease vitamin E levels in rats, Br. J. Nutr., 92, 169, 2004. 

Regarding the compositional differences shown for animal products, whether they are important for health depends, as for the plants, on the overall composition of the diet of the people who eat them. The vitamin E content in milk is far too small for relevant differences to affect health (Nielsen ef al. 2004), and too little is known about the dose-response relations of the impact of conjugated linoleic acids on health. However, the increased vitamin E level may still be important to prevent oxidation of the fat, a problem that can be exacerbated by increased levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids (Dhiman ef al. 1999, Nielsen ef al. 2004). However, while oxidised milk is clearly not good for health, its rancid taste and smell allows detection and rejection before consumption and thus prevents harm to health, similar to plant toxicants. Also in line with the plants, while the use of roughage is clearly more extensive in organic farming, some conventional farmers use almost identical feed compositions and are therefore likely to produce the same quality of products in this respect. 

Presents a table (Table 7) of chloropyll, carotenoid, and vitamin E levels (in pg/g dw) of green leaf tissue, vegetables, green and red fruits (tomato, red pepper), and nongreen plant foods (carrots, cauliflower). 

Determination of Vitamin E and Se Levels in Tissues. Vitamin E levels (at total tocopherol) were determined by the spectro-fluorometric method of Taylor, et al. (25). Selenium levels were determined spectrofluorometrically as described by Whetter and Ullrey (24). 

Table I summarizes the status of vitamin E and Se in various tissues obtained from rats subjected to altered vitamin E and/or Se nutrition. It is evident from the Table that the animals fed on vitamini E and/or Se-deficient diets showed marked decrease in tissue levels of vitamin E and/or Se respectively. This indicates that the diets employed in these experiments induced desirable deficiency states of vitamin and/or Se. In general, vitamin E levels were affected more in microsomes than in cytosols under vitamin E-deficiency states.

Clybum, B.S., Richardson, C.R., Montgomery, J.L., Pollard, G.V., Herring, A.D., and Miller, M.F. 2001. Effect of selenium source and vitamin E level on performance and meat quality of feedlot steers. In Science and Technology in the Feed Industry (T.P. Lyons and K.A. Jacques, eds), pp. 377—392. Nottingham University Press, Nottingham, UK. 

Chronic malabsorption does not fully explain the different extents of fat-soluble vitamin deficiencies associated with ABL. More specifically, why are plasma vitamin E levels more severely affected than those of vitamins A or K The answer for this can be traced to apoB lipoprotein biosynthesis and catabolism (Fig. 27-2). Just as observed for lipids, hydrophobic, fat-soluble vitamins require apoB lipoproteins as vehicles for plasma transport. The reliance of each fat-soluble vitamin on apoB lipoproteins varies, and this variable dependency is directly related to the severity of symptoms observed in ABL. 

Several extensive human epidemiologic studies have also been published. For example, two U.S. studies, one involving 87,245 female nurses (S23) and the other 38,910 male physicians (R5), both concluded that vitamin E supplementation was directly associated with reduced risk for ischemic heart disease. In addition, Gey and associates (G6) reported on a large cross-cultural European population which differed sixfold in age-specific mortality from CAD. The data supported their conclusions that this highly significant difference in CAD was primarily due to increased plasma vitamin E levels in those with a relatively low incidence of... 

R. Depressed selenium and vitamin E levels in an alcohohc popula-... 

This concept, which rapidly became ingrained in researchers minds, led rapidly to the concept that many of the disorders of prematurity such as retinopathy of prematurity, intraventricular haemorrhage and chronic lung disease, could be tackled therapeutically by antioxidant supplementation. Of course this was not a totally new concept, as it had been recognised for years, that preterm infants had low circulating vitamin E levels and vitamin E supplementation had been used, mostly unsuccessfully, to try and alleviate or prevent these conditions. 

Johnson L, Bowen P, Herman N. The relationship of prolonged elevation of serum vitamin E levels to neonatal bacterial sepsis (SEP) and necrotizing enterocolitis (NAC). Pediatr Res 1983 17 319A. 

A number of studies have suggested an association between elevated plasma vitamin E levels and reduced risk for cardiovascular disease (Bonithon-Kopp et ah, 1997 Gey, 1998 Rimm et ah, 1993 Stampfer et ah, 1993). The task of the nutritionist attempting to correlate vitamin intake with cardiovascular disease is complicated by the fact that different food oils contain different amounts of the various toco-pherols. Olive oil contains about 120 mg a-tocopherol/kg oil soybean oil (70 mg a-tocopherol and 900 mg y-tocopherol/kg) safflower oil (340 mg a-tocopherol and 35 mg y-tocopherol/kg) and wheat germ oil (1500 mg a-tocopherol and 800 mg y-tocopherol/kg) (Chase et ah, 1994 McLaughlin and Weihrauch, 1979). Most of the vitamin E present in blood plasma is a-tocopherol (rather than y-tocopherol, for example) because of the influence of a-tocopherol transfer protein. Most of the plasma vitamin E resides in the LDLs. A paradox seems to present itself where people who have elevated LDLs (and who are more at risk for cardiovascular disease) should also have elevated a-tocopherol (and possibly be at lesser risk for cardiovascular disease). This paradox can be avoided by expressing plasma a-to-copherol levels as a-tocopherol/cholesterol (Gey, 1998). 

Hense, H.W., Stender, M., Bors, W., and Keil, W. 1993. Lack of an Association between Serum Vitamin E and Mycocardial Infarction in a Population with High Vitamin E Levels. Atherosclerosis. 103 21-28. 

Scottish Schizophrenia Research Group (2000) Smoking habits and plasma hpid peroxidation and vitamin E levels in neuro-treated first-episode schizophrenia patients. Br. J Psychiatry, 176 290-293. 

Belda JI, Roma J, Vilela C, et al. Serum vitamin E levels negatively correlate with severity of age-related macular degeneration. Mech Ageing Dev 1999 107 159-164. 

Seram vitamin E levels were inversely associated with prostate cancer... 

Clinical manifestations of vitamin E deficiency may be seen in premature infants fed on formnlas high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (H7). In a group of 6 infants on a nonfat powdered cow s milk formula with added cottonseed oil plasma vitamin E levels decreased from 0.22 0.04 (SE) mg/100 ml at birth to 0.08 0.03 mg/100 ml at 4 weeks. Inversely, the in vitro erythrocyte sensitivity to peroxide hemolysis increased from 18 4 (SE)% at birth to 77 14 (SE)% at 4 to 5 weeks after birth. In general, the clinical symptoms were mild, consisting of edema and skin lesions which appeared at about 4 weeks of age. 

H7. Hassan, H., Hashim, S. A., Van Itallie, T. B., and Sebrell, W. H., Syndrome in premature infants associated with low plasma vitamin E levels and high polyunsaturated fatty acid diet. Amer. J. Clin. Nutr. 19, 147-157 (1966). 

The selectivity of higher organisms for a-tocopherol has been impressively demonstrated in recent years by analysing the metabolism of vitamin E. Excess a-tocopherol and the other tocopherol analogs are extensively metabolized before excretion. This finding suggests that the organism maintains the correct vitamin E level by selective retention of a-tocopherol, and by specific metabolism of all the other tocopherols and of the excess a-tocopherol. Keep in mind that the tocopherol metabolites can also act as bioactive compounds, which can bind to... 

Application of HPLC for the quantitation of tocopherols in the pecan provided information on the individual tocopherol homologs (a-, P-, y-, 8-tocopherol). Summation of the four tocopherols yields a measure of the total vitamin E level, as tocotrienols are not present. 

---