The exceptional Vitamin E!

Ciao Nutrinutters!!!

Did you know that when we talk about vitamin E we are not only referring to 1 nutrient?

This vitamin includes 8 different nutrients, four tocopherols and four tocotrienols. However, alpha-tocopherol is the only form that is recognized to meet our requirements and the amount found in the body depends greatly on the liver, which takes up all of the forms of vitamin E but release to the body mainly alpha-tocopherol.

Here’s another fun fact, today’s vitamin is also known as a tocopherol from the Greek meaning “to bring forth offspring” because it was found in the 20’s that rats lost their reproductive ability when deprived of foods containing vitamin E. Neat right? I love investigating the meaning behind names!

But moving on to the good stuff, let’s investigate a little the benefits of this vitamin...

You might be already familiar with what vitamin E is mainly associated with – its antioxidant qualities! Meaning that it protects cells from damage caused by free, active oxygen. Interestingly enough, this quality is exactly what makes vitamin E a useful food preservative keeping foods from being oxidized and turning rancid.

Being a powerful antioxidant, it helps in the prevention of cancer and heart disease. If those reasons are not good enough to get you excited about increasing foods rich in vitamin E, it also helps preventing signs of aging…a fountain of youth? Sign me up for that!

Many foods are good sources of vitamin E including nuts, seeds, vegetable oils and green leafy vegetables. Here are some foods you can incorporate to your day-to-day and increase your vitamin E:

¼ cup of sunflower seeds has about 80% of the daily recommendation

¼ cup of almonds has about 40% of the daily recommendation

1 cup of spinach, swiss chard, turnip greens and asparagus have about 20% of the daily recommendation

The recommendation for vitamin E for male and female adults is 15 mg (22.4 IU) per day and interestingly enough, the average American consumes only half of that. Although this vitamin is a fat soluble vitamin (stored in fat tissue), the tolerable upper intake level for this vitamin is rather high at 1,000 mg (1,500 IU); however, a couple of studies found controversial results while supplementing with 400 IU of vitamin E per day. This applies mostly to people taking vitamin E supplements since, like the previous nutrients we've discussed, reaching high levels through foods is extremely challenging.

I hope everyone has an amazing week!!

-The Nutrinut-