What is vitamin E?

Vitamin E is a fat soluble vitamin that plays many roles in our body. It is found in our blood and tissues in large amounts. Vitamin E is not a single vitamin; it exists in eight forms that are active throughout our body. The eight forms of the vitamin E is divided in to two families. They are the tocopherol and tocotrienols.
The members of the tocopherol are alpha tocopherol, beta tocopherol, gamma tocopherol and delta tocopherol. The members of the tocotrienols are alpha tocotrienols, beta tocotrienols, gamma tocotrienols and delta tocotrienols. Of these, the alpha tocopherol is an anti-oxidant agent which is usually available in the form of alpha tocopherol acetate in the supplements.

What are the functions of vitamin E?

Vitamin E is a powerful anti oxidant that helps in preserving the nutrients such as vitamin A, polyunsaturated fats, proteins and other molecules from oxidizing. It helps in a condition called oxidative stress. This is an imbalanced situation, where the oxygen molecules in our blood start to damage the cell structures. Vitamin E helps a lot in maintaining a healthy skin by allowing the reactive molecules to strike the cell without any damage. Research has shown that, consuming vitamin E rich foods helps a lot in preventing the bladder cancer, which causes 12,500 deaths in US annually.

The food sources rich in vitamin E are nuts, spinach, mustard greens, almonds, fat rich foods, vegetables, corn, olive oil and wheat germ.

What are the causes of vitamin E deficiency?

The deficiency of vitamin E is very rare, but there are also some specific situations where it can occur. The requirement of the vitamin E varies greatly with age, gender and the present health status. If you consume more amounts of polyunsaturated fats through your diet, then you may need more vitamin E than the others. This is because the polyunsaturated fats oxidize easily. If you cannot absorb the fats that you consume through your diet due to the inability of your body to secrete bile, which helps in the digestive process or other intestinal disorders, then you are very likely to develop vitamin E deficiency.

Persons with inflammatory bowel diseases like crohn’s disease which affect the intestine can lead to nutrition mal absorption hence leading to deficiency of vitamin E. People with genetic disorders can also develop vitamin E deficiency. Cystic fibrosis is another disease which affects the lungs, liver, pancreas and the intestine thus disturbing the normal absorption of the nutrients. This leads to the deficiency of vitamins. Infants with low birth weight are also likely to develop its deficiency. There is a condition called necrotizing enterocolitis, which occurs rarely in infants, which is characterized by the inflammation of the linings of the intestines. This may also lead to vitamin E deficiency.