Natural vs. Synthetic Vitamin E

[QuackAttack]

I was listening to Dr. Sherry Rogers the other day and a discussion she was having with Joyce Riley on Vitamin E. Dr. Rogers said that the synthetic form of vitamin e actually drives cancer to grow.

The synthetic form of vitamin e shows up as:

Tocopherols:
dl-Alpha, dl-Beta, dl-Gamma, and dl-Delta
Tocotrienols
dl-Alpha, dl-Beta, dl-Gamma, and dl-Delta


The natural form shows up as:

Tocopherols:
d-Alpha, d-Beta, d-Gamma, and d-Delta
Tocotrienols
d-Alpha, d-Beta, d-Gamma, and d-Delta

I know that the vitamin e I was taking (WAS) came from Costco and was dl-Alpha, so in the trash it went.

Plenty of people on here have said vitamin e was worthless; however, does anybody have any experience with vitamin e being beneficial because they were using real vitamin e in its natural form?

Check this out from Dr. Mercola on vitamin e.

Vitamin E Supplements | Benefits of Vitamin E

[skunkworks]

You should search and read the posts of George99 about Vitamin E.

Also I have a vague memory of there being a semi recent study using vitamin e which showed reasonable results, it might be this one - THE USE OF TOCOPHEROLS IN THE TREATMENT OF PEYRONIE'S DISEASE - Scardino - 2008 - Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences - Wiley Online Library

[FriskyDingo]

I think its so easy to obtain Vitamin E from diet that supplementation is unnecessary. Only 1/4 cub (4 tablespoons of sunflower seeds) will give over 80% of your RDA of Vit-E. Soak the seeds over night in salt and vinegar to remove phytic acid. Sunflower seeds are also cheap.

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=57

For the sake of variety and mixing things up, there are plenty of other high Vit-E foods. I personally really enjoy avocado and asparagus, and sometimes I ferment spinach and beet greens when I make my homemade sauerkraut.

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=111 - Heres a good listing of different Vit-E foods.

I believe that nutrients should come from food as much as possible.

**whfoods is a great website, but it is vegetarian biased. If you explore this website please keep this in mind, there is plenty of evidence around the web for and against vegetarianism. I personally do not think MOST people should be vegetarians (there are always exceptions).

[skunkworks]

The RDA for Vit E is like 15mg, whereas studies use 200mg - 300mg and higher. That is a lot of tablespoons of sunflower seeds.

[FriskyDingo]

The problem with most vitamin E supplements is that they are synthetic, which is the OP's concern. There is a lot of debate floating around the internet whether or not synthetic vitamin E actually harms health as opposed to promote it. The controversy is mostly over synthetics containing only 1 of the 8 forms of Vitamin E. Most natural sources can a balance of all 8. It maybe harmful the same way synthetic retinol (vitamin A) is harmful. They are fat soluble and are not flushed the same way water solubles are when they ingested past the point of benefit.

Due to the controversy around synthetic Vitamin E, I would personally use natural sources. I would use a vitamin E supplement if    1. The supplement can prove it contains the natural form of Vitamin E with all 8 forms in balance.    2. A study showing that supplementing past the RDA has benefit as opposed to dieting in the range of the RDA.