Vitamin E Supplementation and Serum Levels

[j.]

I'd like to collect information on how much vitamin E supplements raise serum levels. Please feel free to post anything about the subject here.

I quote a few statements from the vitamin E encyclopedia:

-Doses of 100 to 3200 IU per day were not toxic in healthy adults.
-Supplementation of vitamin E significantly increases serum alpha tocopherol.
-Even small doses (20 mg/day) of supplementation increase serum tocopherol.
-Supplementing vitamin E for three months resulted in high levels of plasma vitamin E that stayed high even after stopping supplementation, suggesting saturation.
-Although supplementation increases plasma levels of vitamin E, it seems to never increase it more than threefold -even megadosing- to a maximum of 70-80 umol/l.
-In one study, supplementing 800 mg daily didn't have a greater effect than supplementing 200 mg daily.

 

[j.]

-Although supplementation increases plasma levels of vitamin E, it seems to never increase it more than threefold- even with megadosing- to a maximum of 70-80 umol/l.

They say this might represent the limit of vitamin E that can circulate.

I think it would be interesting to test whether supplementing topically even after the maximum blood level has been reached results in increases in adipose tissue, allowing the body to keep a higher blood level for a longer time after stopping supplementation.

 

[Ben]

Remember that most aromatase activity in males occurs in fat tissue, and that PUFAs there can be peroxidized. Vitamin E supplementation is likely to help both, even if it doesn't increase the blood levels. A good way to test whether this is significantly beneficial is by taking 200 mg like the study suggested is the most efficient dosage, without topical vitamin E, then start applying vitamin E topically, particularly on fat areas. This is better because I don't know what percentage of topical vitamin E is absorbed into the bloodstream, or indeed into fat tissue.