Vitamin E: Fountain of Youth?

Vitamin E is the best known antioxidant of all the vitamins, though several others have antioxidant effects. It was discovered when researchers figured out that without its presence in vegetable oils, male rats could not reproduce -- and when it was replaced in their diets, they regained their potency.

This does not mean vitamin E is a super sex vitamin for people; in fact, of four different types, only one type of vitamin E - not the ones that affected the rats - has any function in the human body. Its only real function is to prevent free radicals from producing more free radicals, a function it performs very effectively. If you don't have enough vitamin E, you are likely to become anemic and your muscles may degenerate; otherwise, the effects are subtle.

A deficiency of vitamn E is rare in most humans unless there is something wrong with the way their bodies absorb fat (for example, in cystic fibrosis or after gastric bypass surgery). But there is one group of humans where this deficiency is so common it is expected: premature infants. In the last weeks of gestation, the mother's body provides babies with the vitamin E their bodies need to survive. Without that infusion of vitamin E, their red blood cells burst, causing anemias and blood poisoning. The baby will die without treatment.

Prolonged lack of vitamin E, generally only found in famine or similar extreme conditions, causes spinal cord and retinal dysfunction, which leads to impaired vision and loss of muscular coordination. Muscular dystrophy shows many of the same symptoms for the same reason, but while vitamin E supplements can cure an ordinary vitamin E deficiency, they have no effect on muscular dystrophy.

Too much vitamin E, a rare condition, interferes with the action of vitamin K in blood clotting, causing hemorrhage and potentially death.

The Least You Should Know

Fat-soluble, so must be taken with a meal or a glass of milk. Using a little olive oil with your salad is probably the most efficient way to meet your daily needs. Vitamin E is destroyed in cooking, so cold oils is the way to go.
Adult RDA: 15 mg/day
Max recommended dose: 1000 mg/day