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Vitamin E and Inflammation
Vitamin
E is a fat soluble vitamin which can be found in many foods. It is
especially prevalent in certain fats and oils. It acts as a powerful
antioxidant (nutrients that block the harmful effects of toxic
by-products of bodily functions). The richest source of vitamin E is
wheat-germ. It is also found in significant amounts in liver, eggs,
nuts (almond, hazelnuts, walnuts), sunflower seeds, corn oil,
mayonnaise, vegetable oils, dark green leafy vegetables, sweet
potatoes and yams.
Vitamin
E plays a major role in reducing inflammation as well as cleansing
the body of free radicals. Ishwarlal
Jialal and Sridevi Devaraj of the University of Texas Southwestern
Medical Center at Dallas, Texas studied 47 men and women with
adult-onset, or type II, diabetes and 25 healthy volunteers. The
researchers sampled people's blood before and after each received
1,200 international units of vitamin E daily for 3 months. The
vitamin E cut production of a cytokine, an immune system signaling
molecule. In test-tube experiments, white blood cells were stimulated
to provoke an immune response. Cells from volunteers after treatment
responded by producing about one-third as much interleukin-6--a
cytokine that tells the liver to make CRP--as was generated by cells
from blood drawn before people took vitamin E.
Before
treatment, the 23 people with major diabetes complications such as
kidney failure produced roughly twice as much C-reactive protein
(CRP), a marker of inflammation, as the healthy group did.
Concentrations of CRP were about 33 percent higher in blood from the
24 people with mild diabetes than in the healthy volunteers.
Vitamin
E supplements lowered CRP concentrations dramatically in all three
groups. CRP measurements in people with mild disease fell to the
healthy group's starting concentration, and those in people with
advanced diabetes fell to the concentrations detected in the other
diabetic people before treatment
(Jialal
I, Devaraj S. Effect of vitamin E on acute chronic inflammation in
Type 2 Diabetes Patients: FREE
RADICAL BIOLOGY & MEDICINE
Oct. 2000).
(Upritchard
JE, Sutherland WHF, Mann JI. Effect of supplementation with tomato
juice, vitamin E, and vitamin C on LDL oxidation and products of
inflammatory activity in type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care, 2000,
23:733-738).
Dosages of
vitamin E are usually listed in international units (IU). Vitamin E
supplements are available in soft gel, tablet, capsule and topical
oil forms. The recommended dosage is 200-400 IU daily.
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