Eat Foods Reach in This Vitamin to Help Prevent Vision Problems,Kidney Failure and Blindness
Eat Foods Reach in This Vitamin to Help Prevent Vision Problems,Kidney Failure and Blindness
Only 1 out of 10 people may actually get enough of this vitamin in their diet. The other 9 often struggle with these serious health conditions (unless they start eating these foods to reverse it).
- Vitamin E is an important fat-soluble vitamin and antioxidant that helps combat inflammation and make red blood cells. It also helps your body use vitamin K, which is important for heart health
- Six billion people worldwide and 75 to 90 percent of Americans are deficient in vitamin E, which places them at increased risk for immune dysfunction, cognitive deterioration and cardiovascular disease
- To achieve a healthy level of 30 μmol/L, you need a daily intake of at least 50 IUs of vitamin E. The recommended daily allowance for people over the age of 14 is 15 mg of vitamin E per day
- When supplementing, make sure it’s made with natural (not synthetic) vitamin E and has a balance of all eight vitamin E compounds. Additional criteria for high-quality vitamin E supplements are included.
Signs and symptoms of serious vitamin E deficiency include
- Muscle weakness and unsteady gait –
Vision problems, including constriction of your visual field; abnormal eye movements; blindness
- Loss of muscle mass
Dementia
- Cardiac arrhythmia
Liver and kidney problems
As mentioned, vitamin E is important throughout life, but deficiency during pregnancy can be particularly problematic. Worldwide, about 13 percent of people have vitamin E levels below the “functional deficiency” threshold of 12 μmol/L, and most of these are newborns and young children.
Babies who are deficient in vitamin E are at increased risk for immune and vision problems. Being deficient in vitamin E during pregnancy also raises your risk for miscarriage.
Studies have also found that low vitamin E levels tend to be associated with a higher risk of cancer and heart disease.
It may be worth noting that while some studies have found vitamin E supplementation may actually increase your risk of cancer and has no beneficial effect on heart health, such studies appear to demonstrate the difference between synthetic and natural vitamin E, which I’ll review below.
Synthetic vitamin E is derived from petrochemicals and has known toxic effects, yet synthetic alpha-tocopherol is the type most commonly used when investigating the health effects of vitamin E.
Hence, it’s not so surprising that synthetic vitamin E supplements would fail to provide certain health benefits and potentially increase certain health risks.
Obese people with metabolic syndrome are at increased risk for vitamin E deficiency, in part because they need more vitamin E to begin with (due to increased oxidative stress), and in part because their condition impairs their body’s utilization of vitamin E.
Foods Rich in Vitamin E
Supplements are best taken in addition to, not in place of, a healthy diet, and only if you actually need them. One way to evaluate your need for a vitamin E or other supplements is to use a nutrient tracker, such as Cronometer.com/Mercola, which is the most accurate one on the market because of their decision to eliminate inaccurate crowd sourced data.
Vitamin E can easily be obtained from a healthy diet, so before considering a supplement, I strongly recommend including more vitamin E-rich foods in your diet. Three general categories of foods that contain higher amounts of vitamin E are:
•Leafy greens
•High-fat foods such as nuts, seeds and fatty fish/seafood, including shrimps and sardines
•Oil-rich/high-fat plants such as olives and avocados
| Food | Serving Size | Vitamin E (mg) |
|---|---|---|
| Wheat germ oil | 1 tablespoon | 20.3 mg |
| Sunflower seeds | 1 ounce | 7.4 mg |
| Almonds | 1 ounce | 6.8 mg |
| Sunflower oil | 1 tablespoon | 5.6 mg |
| Hazel nuts | 1 ounce | 4.3 mg |
| Avocado (sliced) | ½ a whole avocado | 2.0 mg |
| Broccoli (boiled/steamed) | ½ cup | 1.2 mg |
| Mango (sliced) | ½ cup | 0.7 mg |
| Spinach (raw) | 1 cup | 0.6 mg |
Identifying a High-Quality Vitamin E Supplement
If you decide to take a supplement, make sure it’s a high-quality supplement made with all-natural ingredients. Here are a number of criteria to consider when making your selection:
•Made with natural vitamin E. Synthetic versions are typically identified by the “dl” at the beginning (dl-alpha-tocopherol), while non-synthetic uses a “d” (d-alpha-tocopherol).
•Free of soy or soybean oil derivatives. Due to the potential health risks (detailed above), avoid vitamin E supplements that contain any kind of soy.
•Free of GE ingredients. This can be a bit challenging since manufacturers are not required to list specifics on GE ingredients. However, since vitamin E is naturally formed in a variety of plants and many of these plants are now GE, (especially when grown in the U.S.), I recommend avoiding supplements made from corn, soybeans and cotton seed.
•Has a balance of all four tocopherols. If it’s a synthetic form of vitamin E, it most likely will not contain any of the other tocopherols (beta, gamma and delta). I believe these are important to your overall health and should be included.
•Has a balance of all four tocotrienol nutrients. Rarely do you find these important compounds listed on vitamin E labels and the reason for that is because synthetic formulas will not contain tocotrienols. In my view, they’re an important part of a well-balanced formula.
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