Alphabet Soup With the way we name our vitamins -- A, B, C, D, E --
understanding them should be as simple as learning the alphabet,
right? I'm afraid not. In fact, their complexity often leads to chronic
confusion among healthcare professionals – and a headache for
consumers who might try to keep up with current
recommendations. Vitamin E is a prime example. When you hear about a new study
that says it may help prevent cancer, or halt heart disease, or
perhaps even that it's absolutely useless, the study or report just
names "vitamin E" -- and makes no further distinctions. But there
are actually eight different forms, plus synthetic and natural
varieties. And those differences make a big difference. There's
only one molecule of difference between the synthetic and natural
versions of vitamin E -- but in science, one molecule means a lot. The fact of the matter is that the synthetic versions just don't do
the job as well as Mother Nature herself. In numerous studies,
natural vitamin E outperforms the synthetic: it is found in the
blood at much higher levels, and is excreted at much lower levels,
meaning more of it is being put to use throughout your body.
Some scientists are starting to understand this, but there's no
consensus on the matter coming anytime soon. And getting the
word out to consumers is an even more daunting task. Especially
when we still have more questions than answers. This spring, scientists and vitamin manufacturers converged at a
conference that focused solely on vitamin E -- the first gathering of
its kind in over 15 years. Most attendees agreed that the current
RDA values are not nearly enough, and that it is virtually
impossible to get enough vitamin E through your daily diet.
Unfortunately, they couldn't agree on what the right amount
should be. One researcher went so far as to postulate that we might
each have our own individual optimal level that we need to
achieve. That one could take some time. And although there seems to be widespread recognition among
researchers that the natural form is better than synthetic, they
didn't take a stand on the matter. The problem is that until
scientists can reach some agreement on this issue, the research they
produce will continue to be conflicting, contradictory, and
confusing. They're comparing apples to oranges, but acting as if all
fruit is the same. It doesn't exactly take scores of scientists at a fancy conference to
confirm what has proven to be true over and over -- nature does a
better job of matching what our bodies need than scientists do.
Dr. Wright talks about vitamin E in Nutrition & Healing quite
often -- most often cautioning his readers to take additional vitamin
E when they take fish oil supplements, to prevent the essential fatty
acids from oxidizing too rapidly. His general recommendation is to
take 400 IU of vitamin E as mixed tocopherols daily. *******************************************
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oolong tea. Is that technically a real tea or is that some kind of
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black, green, and white varieties. Oolong is sometimes referred to
as semi-fermented and is somewhere in between black tea and
green tea in terms of how long it is processed. It is a very popular
variety in China in particular. Because it is a true tea, oolong shares many of the same benefits of
green tea. However, since it does undergo the fermentation process
for slightly longer, it may contain less of some healthful elements
than green tea, but more than black tea. Its caffeine content is also
in the middle of these two varieties as well. ******************************************
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(if you can't open here use the HTML links listed below) ********************************************* What is…a tocopherol? The word "tocopherol" crops up in just about any conversation
about vitamin E. That's because it was the original word for
vitamin E, before it was assigned a letter of the alphabet. It comes
from the Greek words "tokos" meaning childbirth, and "phero"
meaning to bring forth. When it was first identified in 1922, it was
used to cure reproductive abnormalities in rats. It would be another
34 years before vitamin E's antioxidant properties were
discovered. It was around that time as well when the eight different
forms of vitamin E were identified and researchers started to form
a more complex understanding of this substance. Yours in good health,
Amanda Ross
Managing Editor
Nutrition & Healing Sources:
Kiyose C, et al. "Biodiscrimination of alpha-tocopherol
stereoisomers in humans after oral administration." Am J Clin Nutr
1997; 65(3): 785-789
Burton GW, et al. "Human plasma and tissue alpha-tocopherol
concentrations in response to supplementation with deuterated
natural and synthetic vitamin E." Am J Clin Nutr 1998; 67(4): 669-
684 Traber MG, et al. "Synthetic as compared with natural vitamin E is
preferentially excreted as alpha-CEHC in human urine: studies
using deuterated alpha-tocopheryl acetates." FEBS Letters; 437(1-
2): 145-148. | 
