Vitamin E benefits meat coloration, flavor and smell.
“Piglets are born with low vitamin E and rely on colostrum to restore levels and prevent deficiency,” says Bergstrom. “Increasing the sow’s dietary level of vitamin E prior to farrowing boosts levels of vitamin E in colostrum, allowing piglets to rapidly increase vitamin E levels after birth and maintain optimal levels until weaning.”
The Institute of Medicine establishes a recommended dietary allowance, or RDA, for important nutrients. The RDA represents the average daily intake of a nutrient that meets the needs of 97 to 98 percent of healthy people. RDA values for vitamin E vary by age but not by gender.
Americans prize a youthful appearance, and we are willing to spend money and go to some effort to stave off wrinkles. Will putting vitamin E oil on your skin help you look young?
The γ-Tocopherol isoform of vitamin E can reduce typical inflammatory features of asthma and could be a future steroid-free option for sufferers, say researchers. Published in the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology, researchers from the University of North Carolina assessed the impact of γ-Tocopherol supplementation had on airway inflammation among mild asthma sufferers.
Numerous studies show that a little-known type of vitamin E called tocotrienols can protect the brain against stroke damage and reduce the risk of recurrent stroke. According to tocotrienol researcher Prof Chandan K. Sen, brain damage during a stroke can be prevented by triggering the surrounding blood vessels to dilate and redirect the blood flow around a blockage. The blood vessel “redirect” is the result of 10 weeks worth of supplementation with palm tocotrienols in a canine-stroke model study.
A widely publicised review ‘incorrectly inflated’ the mortality risk attributed to vitamin E, with the appropriateness of the datasets and the validity of its methods being called into question in a new paper backed by the Blackmores Institute.
Vitamin E deficiency might be linked to an increased risk of colorectal cancer, according to a Chinese systematic review and meta-analysis. The review concluded that while serum vitamin E deficiency might be associated with a higher risk of developing colorectal cancer, ”necessary prospective cohort studies should be conducted to assess the effect of vitamin E” on the risk of colorectal cancer.
Can oral ingestion of vitamin E help reduce muscle fiber damage? Yes, according to a group of researchers in Brazil… in mice at least.
”The use of antioxidant as a therapeutic agent has recently gained renewed interest”, wrote the researchers from the State University of Campinas of Sao Paolo, Brazil. ”Several studies have demonstrated positive outcomes regarding some diseases such as cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, allergic disease, neuromuscular disease, and muscular dystrophies.”
Low dietary antioxidant intake — coupled with insufficient sleep — could lead to an increased risk of obesity in men, a Korean study has found. The study noted that ”a combined effect of the consumption of dietary antioxidant vitamins, such as vitamin A, retinol, carotene, vitamin C, and vitamin E, on sleep duration was observed with respect to the odds of being obese.”
Many nutrients really are “food for thought.” The brain is the most active part of the body and has an enormous appetite, requiring about 20 percent of our total energy intake to function. But energy is not the sole source of “food” for the brain: vitamins, fatty acids and minerals are also important for optimizing cognitive health. The high energy demands and the considerable blood flow to the brain mean that nutrients involved in energy metabolism and producing healthy blood cells will help us maintain normal cognition, such as the B-vitamins and iron. Other micronutrients play an unappreciated role in brain health: omega-3s, vitamin E and vitamin D. How do they contribute to nutrition for the brain?
