In the 1970s, researchers attempted to discover the symptoms of a vitamin E deficiency by providing subjects (read: graduate students) with a diet completely devoid of vitamin E. After a year on this diet, the subjects showed no signs of deficiency. The researchers concluded that vitamin E was vitamin in search of a deficiency syndrome (such as C and scurvy or D and rickets). Later, researchers found that many nutrient deficiencies do not show up as a classical deficiency syndrome, but rather surface years later as heart disease, cancer, or some other catastrophic disease.
