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First they attacked Vitamin C, now guess who is attacking vitamin E?
 This week a research paper was published announcing a negative research report on vitamin E. The research paper, titled "Meta-Analysis: High Dosage Vitamin E Supplementation May Increase All-Cause Mortality," was a literature review of 19 studies on vitamin E done between 1966 and 2004. The report concluded that "high dosages of vitamin E supplementation (400 IUs or greater) may increase all-cause mortality and should be avoided." But guess who funded the study? Yes, the huge drug company, Roche. They reviewed research done only on people already at high risk and ignored hundreds of studies that show the benefits of therapeutic doses of vitamin E. There are two forms of vitamin E: the natural form found in food, and the synthetic vitamin E, manufactured in the laboratory. In the natural form, vitamin E occurs as eight related compounds — the tocopherols (alpha, beta, delta and gamma) and the tocotrienols (alpha, beta, delta and gamma). These 8 are found in natural supplements and foods, whereas the synthetic vitamin E contains only alpha-tocopherol. It is missing the other 7 essential ingredients found in nature. Some experiments in humans and animals have shown that giving alpha-tocopherol alone, as synthetic vitamin E, can block absorption of some of the other 7 natural partners. Thus, be wary of taking synthetic vitamin E. Over half a century ago the Shute brothers — medical doctors in Ontario — used natural Vitamin E from wheat germ oil in the successful treatment of heart disease-related conditions, such as intermittent claudication, angina, thrombophlebitis and the prevention of and recovery from heart attacks. It is very important to know that the above study did not separate out those studies using natural Vitamin E vs synthetic alpha tocopherol. Therefore the efficacy of their report is greatly in doubt. Now I am all for good science and giving the people true information to help them stay healthy and live better. And it is true that natural substances can be abused just as drugs can. And we don't want people taking too much of a good thing and doing themselves harm, BUT of one thing I have no doubt: when pharmaceutical companies fund studies that show that natural supplements are harmful, my level of suspicion of motive goes way up. And when looking more closely at their work in this study, I don't believe anything can be concluded about taking natural vitamin E, except that they succeeded once again in getting controversial headlines with much ado about nothing.
"To "E" or not to "E"? " "Vitamin E"
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