What Is The Problem With High Dose Vitamin E Supplementation?

[AnonE]

I've read great things about Vitamin E from both Peat and members of this forum. Personally I respond very well to it, especially in this high-PUFA world we live.

Vitamin E: Estrogen antagonist, energy promoter, and anti-inflammatory

So I'm wondering could there be a problem with daily 1000IU - 2000IU consumption? Divided doses for myself. Lately I respond great to it, energy and sex drive, typically taking multiple 400IU tablets a day, mostly with meals, after workouts/stressful events, etc.

(Also, see @haidut's post here with an experiment that involved high Vit E: Sexuality And Libido Through A Peat Prism)

And while there was a research study from Johns Hopkins about 'increased death risk' from over 400IU a day, the study was a meta-study looking at mostly older people with pre-existing health conditions. There's a good breakdown of that study here:

Is Vitamin E Dangerous? - DrWeil.com

What do you guys think?

 

[olive]

Most supplements are alpha

If you supplement large doses of alpha you deplete gamma

Gamma is more beneficial than alpha, usually

The forum member @Travis has written about it in more detail

 

[TeaRex14]

Vitamin E has blood thinning properties to it, so mega dosing it habitually could cause you to run into problems. Especially if you're taking other blood thinners. 400iu is a pretty high daily dose, 200iu is the more average daily dose. Unless someone is drinking oil I don't see why a normal 200iu-400iu dose wouldn't suffice.

 

[Captain_Coconut]

Personally a high dose does not feel that different to me than a moderate dose of 400iu. I also don’t notice much difference from daily vs bi-daily dosing.

 

[Obi-wan]

Read my post at A Case For High ROS, Antioxidants Are Useless And Potentially Harmful!

 

[AnonE]

@Obi-wan hope you've done well with the cancer treatment bro.

Also according to one of those genetic test analysis sites, I have "increased vitamin E need". I got this result after intuitively testing that I feel better with higher vitamin E. From my xcode.life report:

It might just be a slightly better horoscope, but I think there's something to it. Guess my next step is actually measuring serum levels of things

 

[LucH]

So I'm wondering could there be a problem with daily 1000IU - 2000IU consumption?

Have you ever heard that too much of good thing can be bad. More seriously get informed about hormesis.
Simply said: Make cure and then pause. Cyp450 pathway needs recup (pathway of detoxification / neutralization of foreign substances).
Interaction
1. Interaction:
High dose of Vitamin E may interfere with the way the body processes certain herbs or supplements using the liver's cytochrome P450.
Note: high dose is more than 400 mg / daily.
2. http://www.jlr.org/content/48/5/1090.full
Cytochrome P450 4F2 (CYP4F2) catalyzes the initial ω-hydroxylation reaction in the metabolism of tocopherols and tocotrienols to carboxychromanols and is, to date, the only enzyme shown to metabolize vitamin E.

PS: Not only alpha-tocopherols. Vit E is a blood thinner: Need more K1 and folate (blood platelets).

 

[Cirion]

I don't seem to do well with high dose vitamin E. It induced painful and even slightly bloody bowel movements for me. Presumably due to the blood thinning effects. Proceed with caution.

 

[Obi-wan]

You might want to read the thread A Case For High ROS, Antioxidants Are Useless And Potentially Harmful!. It might change the way you look at antioxidant supplementation...

 

[AnonE]

Any opinions on this vitamin E supp?

https://www.thorne.com/products/dp/ultimate-e-reg

Higher dose than normal but not crazy, and has mixed tocopherols.

Also any comments on @haidut using 2000 mg(!) on his experiment? I mean I get it's not something he's doing longer-term but it seemed to be a big part of increasing testosterone and clearing estrogen according to his experiment and theories. Wonder how much he takes now regularly.

 

[Obi-wan]

Great case for using Vit E Succinate at http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/clincanres/8/3/863.full.pdf

ABSTRACT -

Tocopheryl succinate (-TOS), a redox-inactive analogue of vitamin E, is a strong inducer of apoptosis, whereas -tocopherol (-TOH) lacks apoptogenic activity (J. Neuzil et al., FASEB J., 15: 403–415, 2001). Here we investigated the possible antineoplastic activities of -TOH and -TOS and further explored the potential of -TOS as an antitumor agent. Using nude mice with colon cancer xenografts, we found that -TOH exerted modest antitumor activity and acted by inhibiting tumor cell proliferation. In contrast, -TOS showed a more profound antitumor effect, at both the level of inhibition of proliferation and induction of tumor cell apoptosis. -TOS was nontoxic to normal cells and tissues, triggered apoptosis in p53/ and p21Waf1/Cip1(/)
cancer cells, and exerted a cooperative proapoptotic activity with tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (Apo2 ligand) due to differences in proapoptotic signaling. Finally, -TOS cooperated with tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand in suppression of tumor growth in vivo. Vitamin E succinate is thus a potent and highly specific anticancer agent and/or adjuvant of considerable therapeutic potential.

Conclusions.

In this study, we show that (a) -TOS inhibited growth of colon carcinoma by almost 80%, and -TOH inhibited growth of colon carcinoma by 35%; (b) -TOS-treated mice showed increased apoptosis and decreased proliferation, whereas -TOH inhibited proliferation only; (c) -TOS efficiently killed cancer cells deficient in p53 and p21Waf1/Cip1;( d) -TOS cooperated with TRAIL in apoptosis induction and inhibition of tumor growth; (e) -TOS accumulated in tissues and was partially hydrolyzed to -TOH; and (f) -TOS was nontoxic to normal murine organs and to normal cells. Our data strongly suggest that -TOS is a nontoxic antineoplastic agent that cooperates with TRAIL in vivo and suggest an explanation why -TOH is often found to be inefficient in cancer treatment (57). We propose that this semisynthetic vitamin E analogue is a promising anticancer agent or adjuvant, which warrants its testing in other models of cancer with a realistic prospect of its use in human therapy.

Profound...having or showing great knowledge or insight.

 

[Frankdee20]

If one opts for this route, use a mixed tocopherol version, non Soy, like Thorne, but it is expensive at 55 dollars.

 

[youngsinatra]

I use about 400 IU every other day because alpha-tocopherol has a half life of about 48h.