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Per Suzy Cohen
The Truth About Natural Vitamin E (as opposed to other kinds)
We are all afraid of losing our mind, and our memory. It’s scary to forget what you were just saying or where you put your glasses. No one is clear about what causes memory loss or neurodegenerative brain disorders, but we do know that fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin E support brain health.
Some people are actually (and sadly) afraid to take vitamin E because of a misleading study years ago that concluded vitamin E was bad for us. What a disservice that journalist did to spread the news about this famous study (which will go down in history as one of the most awful tricks to play on sick, vulnerable people)!
Many clinical trials unfortunately use synthetic (man-made) vitamin E on trial participants, which does not confer healing benefits. Would you expect it to?
They use only a fraction of the whole molecule of vitamin E called “ALPHA” tocopherol, and for this reason their results are usually bad. Well of course!!!
What do you think happens in a human trial when you don’t use the 7 other parts of vitamin E?
Think about it. Seriously, take a moment to think. This is akin to building a puzzle that consists of 8 pieces, but you only have ONE (the alpha piece). How far can you get putting together a puzzle with just one piece?
Not very.
What do you think happens to humans when you give them lab-created compounds that do not match what naturally occurs in nature?
Vitamin E is awesome. It’s just as awesome as vitamin A, vitamin D and other essential nutrients that your body requires for optimal health. Because vitamin E is a fat-soluble nutrient it feeds and nourishes fatty tissue, especially your heart, pancreas, liver and brain. Your brain loves E, especially if you’ve had a TBI (traumatic brain injury) or other hypercoagulable conditions.
Vitamin E is like Superman for your brain unless you take a low-quality form, and then it’s like kryptonite!
Sadly there’s a lot of junk out there. Unnecessary fillers, binders, colors, excipients and even the type of isomer of your vitamin E matters.
Do you see “dl- alpha tocopherol” on your label?
You probably do, that is what 99% of vitamin E supplements contain. All synthetic forms of vitamin E are labeled with a dl- prefix. I wouldn’t put this in my body if you paid me. Now as I say that please realize I’m a self-confessed nut job when it comes to putting vitamins in my body. I’m not saying synthetic will harm you, I’m just saying I prefer natural things, that’s just me! In my experience, studies that use natural Vitamin E produce better outcomes than those that use synthetic E. It’s common sense.
Natural E has the d- prefix only (not dl-) and is easily recognized by your cells.
Synthetic E is just another chemical your body has to face.
The bigger surprise to most people is not how much we’ve been duped by synthetic E supplements (because many of you are aware of the synthetic vs. natural shenanigans). No, the bigger surprise is that ALMOST ALL vitamin E formulas contain JUST ONE isomer out of 8.
True story!
Natural E, as it occurs in nature is part of a family of 8 compounds, and alpha tocopherol is just one of them! So when you take a conventional E supplement you are only getting one-eighth of what you should be getting.
Feeling cheated?
Please meet the whole fam- these are the 8 naturally-occurring isomers of vitamin E:
alpha tocopherol
beta tocopherol
delta tocopherol
gamma tocopherol
alpha tocotrienol
beta tocotrienol
delta tocotrienol
gamma tocotrienol
The only thing worse than taking one-eighth of pure vitamin E, is to take a poor quality vitamin E supplement. You end up flooding your body with one isomer, and thus depleting the other 8 forms of E. What I’m saying is that cheap vitamin E (with just the alpha portion) is a drug mugger of 7 natural constituents of vitamin E which (over time) get tilted out of balance. The more alpha tocopherol you take, the more depleted you become in the beta, delta and gamma tocopherols (and all 4 tocotrienols). Remember in E, there are 4 tocopherols and 4 tocotrienols, so taking only a single alpha can deplete the others so to speak. The most affordable supplements (and the ones that are easy to find) unfortunately contain just 1 tocopherol (the alpha) and it’s usually synthetic (as in “dl”) to boot!
Even though these are cheap to buy, you’re better off NOT supplementing in my humble opinion, as you can set off a lot of free radical damage.
Tocotrienols
These are the less talked about puzzle pieces of natural E. Collectively speaking, the tocotrienols (all four of them) have very strong antioxidant activity. Tocotrienols are 50 – 70 times more potent than tocopherols so they penetrate deeper into fatty tissues like your brain and liver. Tocotrienols are found mostly in palm oil, soybean oil and rice bran oil with trace amounts in wheat, rye, barley, and oats (however, there is some research suggests these gluten-containing grains can harm the brain). Other sources of tocotrienols include oats, grapefruit seed oil, nuts (especially walnuts and hazelnuts) corn (maize), high-quality olive oil, buckthorn berry, flax seed oil, poppy seed oil and sunflower oil. What do you think the likelihood is you’re getting this amazing antioxidant (tocotrienols) in therapeutic amounts?
Close to zero.
To get enough, you’d have to slurp a cup of palm oil per day, or two cups of rice bran oil per day, or eat almost 3.5 pounds of wheat germ per day! Do I need to mention you should sit on the potty if you’re going to attempt this?!
No, don’t do it! A good vitamin E supplement is better. Much better. High-quality versions contain every component of vitamin E, including the 4 tocotrienols and the 4 tocopherols. Those both have four subdivisions, alpha, beta, delta, and gamma. So natural vitamin E contains 8 different parts (4 tocotrienols and 4 tocopherols). And gamma tocotrienol is the prizewinner of the bunch!
Studies prove it
Natural vitamin E supports all kinds of systems in your body, and possibly contributes to better health if you’re dealing with a complex health issue. For example, studies support vitamin E’s use for cholesterol management, for clotting problems, for certain cancers like breast and prostate cancer, and especially for brain health. Tocotrienols in particular have been shown to protect against destructive free radicals associated with chronic disease and inflammation. The bad boys I’m referring to include ROS, NF-kappa B, COX, and LOX … they have to be stopped and E can help with that. Medically, there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease. Medications such as Namenda, Aricept, Exelon and others can lessen symptoms and perhaps even delay progression, so do as your doctor tells you, but…. unfortunately, they do nothing to quell these ‘bad-boy’ free radicals!
Let’s talk about nitric oxide for a minute…
Peroxynitrite is a dangerous oxidant that is created in activated phagocytes during infections. Phagocytes are a type of white blood cell. Peroxynitrite can be formed if you have genetic SNPs that cause you to preferentially break down nitrates into this potent neurotxoin. Peroxynitrite is pro-inflammatory, it’s a cytokine, and it’s also known to be a major player in cancer, heart disease and many neurodegenerative disorders. According to a powerful study conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, the researchers found that gamma tocopherol was required to remove peroxynitrite (and other damaging nitrogen-containing molecules). Alpha tocopherol just didn’t cut it. Simply put, gamma tocopherol (not the popular alpha portion) was a good way to reduce peroxynitrite. Perhaps, and I’m venturing out on a limb, but perhaps it could help relieve pain and neurological issues related to high peroxynitrite levels and thus allow for lower doses of analgesics. Another way to reduce mitochondrial damage to the heart is with resveratrol.
Please tell me why we didn’t hear this over a loud-speaker?!
A recent study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease on tocotrienols should have made headline news. Why it didn’t is beyond me! I actually festered inside for hours after I read it and so I’m taking the opportunity to tell you today. Researchers know that poor mitochondrial function contributes to Alzheimer’s disease. We know that.
Mitochondria are the energy generators in you cells. You have trillions (about 3 pounds) of them.
When they malfunction or die, individuals feel fatigued, short of breath, and seem to have a higher incidence of neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease, MS, ALS, Huntington’s and many others. Researchers found more beta amyloid plaques with poor mitochondrial function, and the study participants had developed early stages of Alzheimer’s. The cells had poor function, low energy levels, and the cells weren’t “breathing” right.
Not good! (But good they could at least see this!)
Now, get this. They treated the dysfunctional cells for 24 hours with rice bran oil that contained tocotrienols (as well as some tocopherols). Not surprisingly, this treatment reduced the dangerous plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease! Wow, so impressive that anything natural could impact this progressive, disabling and heart-wrenching illness. I wish this was broadcast to all the world.
Did you know “gamma” tocotrienol protects mammary tissue? That is huge news to women who live in fear of breast cancer or those who have recovered. This is just one study, published back in 2005, over 10 years ago! Has anyone told you? The study title is, “Gamma tocotrienol inhibits neoplastic mammary epithelial cell proliferation …”
REPEAT- GAMMA, not alpha and certainly not dl-alpha (the synthetic kind).
Here’s another brand new study on asthma, comparing tocopherols with tocotrienols, that was very brave and smart! The researchers come right out and said, “Clinical trials of tocopherol supplementation to assess the impact of antioxidant activity in asthma have yielded equivocal results. Tocotrienol exhibits greater antioxidant activity than tocopherol in several biological phenomena in vivo and in vitro.” The favorable results were just published (May 2015) in Pulmonary Pharmacology and Therapeutics.
If you go to pubmed, you can do your own research, just type in “tocotrienol” or “gamma tocotrienol” or any other component of vitamin E you wish to research. If you find a negative study, dig deeper and buy the whole study (rather than reading the free abstract they offer) and more than likely, you will see that the vitamin E used in the trial was probably synthetic. A lot of negative E studies used just one isomer, not all of them.
Am I selling vitamin E? I sure am!
I’m proud of it too, do you know how long it took me to create a vitamin E formula that is both NATURAL and FULL SPECTRUM?!
OMG, I am very proud of this feat. It is very hard to find, and I decided to make it when Sam needed it and I had to go to 6 different health food stores in the dead of Colorado winter, just to find something suitable. It was so frustrating, I came home and told him “Take this brand for now, but we need to make a good E available to savvy consumers because it should not be THIS hard to find natural, clean E!”
Being a good husband and he really is (and knowing that when I have a brain worm I canNOT be stopped) he basically said, “Yes dear.”
Took me months, but I got all the isomers into one softgel, just one!
That said, I should tell you my E softgels are kind of BIG, they are about the size of fish oils, and perhaps even bigger. I have no trouble swallowing this, but you might. It’s a little easier if you are eating your meal, and the food will enhance absorption anyway. You can also puncture it and squeeze Full Spectrum E into your rice cereal, oatmeal, a baked potato, soup, stew, almond butter, yogurt or any food you want to. It’s better with something fatty in your meal.
Do you have to buy from me? Of course not, you can (and should) buy from any retailer you want to, and trust. Things to look for would be that it is natural (not synthetic) and that it contains all the tocotrienols and all the tocopherols. I’d also make sure it is free of artificial ingredients. Vitamin E brands are sold nationwide, at health food stores and online.
She makes Script Essentials Full Spectrum E
I don't see any mention of where it was extracted from (palm, soy, rapeseed, etc). Did you call them by any chance?
Looks exactly the same as this one Ultra Gamma E Complex
Did some research and came up with this. Could this be the one??? I will wait for your reply's before I even think about ordering
Looks exactly the same as this one Ultra Gamma E Complex
Thanks for all your work...I understand desperation, believe me.All Vitamin E is extracted from some type of vegetable oil unless it is synthetic. Looks like Full Spectrum E is the same as Ultra gamma E as Designs for Health does have a private label department. But the process is so highly refined that you do not have PUFA in the end product and thus it is put in MCT oil. Thorne might not have the Tocotrienols which sounds like they are highly important. I have a call back to Designs for Health to ask about the percentages of the different Tocopherols. I am sure Gamma is the highest since the label states High-Gamma. Suzy Cohens is the cheapest at $39.99
Wow. Is that γ-tocopherol in medium-chained trigylycerides (of saturated fatty acids)? This could be seen as an improvement by many people over the γ-tocopherol I'd found dissolved in α-linolenic acid (although this is indisputably needed for DHA synthesis in non-fish-eating humans lest your brain demyelinate—also leading to the brain's grey matter getting dogged-down with cholesterol—but α-linolenic acid is nearly impossible to avoid anyhow so nobody needs to make a special effort to consume it). The product above under review certainly appears to be a green-light product, and also one of the few completely lacking either ω−6 fatty acids or inactive stereoisomers. This is rare, as my search has indicated that roughly 95% of all tocopherol supplements has at least one of the aforementioned objections. I would have to give this two thumbs-up, and if I were Shiva I'd have to give it six.@Travis, I think we have a winner here. I am ordering Suzy Cohens Full Spectrum E
I had started reading until she had classified each subclass (i.e. α, β, γ, δ) as 'different isomers,' which isn't true. It's even less true to classify the tocopherols as isomers of the respective tocotrienol analogues, which she also does. So I had assumed it was information that I'd read previously in articles since I've read dozens on this topic alone. I am very interesting in this molecule, and also peroxynitrite—which I think is highly-relevant to many pathological conditions.Just got the @Travis stamp of approval. Did you read Suzy's info above regarding tocotrienol's?