LIFE EXTENSION MAGAZINE June 2001, An Unjustified Attack on Vitamin E, by Bill Faloon and Angela Pirisi In article recently published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed that high doses of vitamin E did not lower urinary measurements of lipid peroxidation in healthy people. Since the primary purpose of taking vitamin E is to protect against these kinds of free radicals, the authors of this study questioned the rationale for healthy people consuming supplemental vitamin E. The media jumped all over this story and attacked the value of vitamin E supplementation. The fact that vitamin E by itself failed to demonstrate suppression of lipid peroxidation is not surprising. It has long been known that vitamin E requires other antioxidants in order to recycle itself back into a free radical scavenger. The people who participated in this study were screened to make sure that none of them had taken a multivitamin supplement in the preceding month. During the course of the study, the subjects were not allowed to take any supplement other than the prescribed vitamin E. This meant that there were no other antioxidants available to recycle vitamin E end-products back into effective suppressors of free radicals. Studies published many years ago showed that for vitamin E to function as a continuous antioxidant, ample levels of vitamin C must be present to regenerate (donate more electrons) to vitamin E in the body. The subjects who participated in the JAMA study were not allowed to take vitamin C or any other supplement that would have enabled the vitamin E to function as an effective antioxidant. Remember we are NOT Doctors and have NO medical training. This site is like an Encylopedia - there are many pages, many links on many topics. Support our work with any size DONATION - see left side of any page - for how to donate. You can help raise awareness of CAM.