LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Vit E

Trial of Antioxidant Supplementation in Critically ill Surgical Patients – (01-09-03)

by

Trial of Antioxidant Supplementation in Critically ill Surgical Patients

Shhhhh!!! We wouldn’t want word of this getting out!! The use of Vit E and C helped improve outcome and shorten hospital stay in critically ill surgical patients. Lets see…(the dosages were not noted here) the best quality supplements (which are usually NOT used in clinically studies) would probably cost at the absolute max $50 per month. Most likely this intervention would cost about $20 total for high quality, $10 for all others. And the safety of an intervention like this is unquestionable. So do we think there’ll be a rash of antioxidant supplementation use in the surgical arena?

Read entire article here

Long-Term alpha-Tocopherol and Vit C Have No Detectable Anti-Inflammatory Effects in Healthy Men – (04-16-03)

by

Long-Term alpha-Tocopherol and Vit C Have No Detectable Anti-Inflammatory Effects in Healthy Men

Thought I would comment on this one in case any readers come across this article first. Basically, Vit E and C had no effect on inflammatory markers such as TNF-alpha, IL-6 or CRP. Many would use this as another opportunity to denounce these supplements in disease prevention, but I would disagree. I generally do not consider these supplements as having direct anti-inflammatory effects. Rather, these antioxidants serve more of a protective function; protecting cells and cellular components from damage from oxidation from both normal and pathological processes.

nutrition.org — Abstracts: Bruunsgaard et al. 133 (4): 1170

Click here for more information.

gamma-Tocopherol, the major form of vit E in the US diet – (11-29-01)

by

gamma-Tocopherol, the major form of vit E in the US diet

This is a nice wake up call for many people out there. When we speak of vit E, we frequently only mention one substance in the class of tocopherols. There are actually many types of tocopherols found in nature that have a variety of biological actions as well as their related compounds tocotrienols. When eating a well rounded diet we are exposed to a wide variety of these substances…frequently with supplementation we only get the alpha form of tocopherol.

AJCN — Abstracts: Jiang et al. 74 (6): 714

Read entire article here

Changes in Antioxidative Mechanisms in Elderly Patients with NIDDM – (06-11-01)

by

Changes in Antioxidative Mechanisms in Elderly Patients with NIDDM

This study suggests that changes in the way that our cells use alpha-tocopherol (one form of Vit E) may be related to the pathogenesis of diabetes. While I don’t find this concept hard to believe, I do feel that diabetes is unquestionably a multi-factorial disease that needs to be attacked from multiple angles to be most effective.

Karger Online : Gerontology

Read entire article here

Dietary Antioxidants Do Not Reduce Carotid Atherosclerosis Risk – (12-17-01)

by

Dietary Antioxidants Do Not Reduce Carotid Atherosclerosis Risk

When I first read this title I was a little surprised. Strangely enough, when I went to the original journal article, the findings show that antioxidants do protect against atherosclerosis, namely dietary Vit E and lycopene. The effect was not great, but these nutrients are only one small part of a program towards good cardiovascular health. The other antioxidants studied (Vit A, C and beta-carotene) did not show an effect. How could a major reporting agency come up with the title shown above when the results are clearly the opposite. The bias here almost sickens me.

Read entire article here

-tocopherol, neuronal degeneration and chronic oxidative stress – (12-27-01)

by

tocopherol, neuronal degeneration and chronic oxidative stress

The idea of Vit E being neuroprotective has come up many times in the past, with particular attention to delaying progression in Parkinson’s disease. This mouse study adds further weight to the idea of Vit E as a neuroprotective agent. Remember also that Vit E is alpha tocopherol, and that many other types of tocopherols exists along with their related cousins the tocotrienols. Nature provided us with a mixture of these agents.

PNAS — Abstracts: Yokota et al. 98 (26): 15185

Read entire article here

Vit E May Reduce Cardiovascular Disease in Type 2 Diabetics – (08-17-00)

by

Vit E May Reduce Cardiovascular Disease in Type 2 Diabetics

I stongly recommend 800 IU of vitamin E daily to all my patients. This is such a simple and safe addition, and yet the benefit list of vitamin E keeps getting longer and longer.

Circulation 2000:102:191-196 Supplemental alpha-tocopherol (AT) given to type 2 diabetic patients decreases monocyte activity and soluble cell adhesion molecules, thereby possibly reducing the risk of macrovascular disease in this group, according to researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. “There are two main findings,” Dr. Jialal told Reuters Health. One, he said, is that this study is the first demonstration that there is increased inflammation in diabetes, whether patients have heart disease or not. “This was manifested by the monocyte plaque formation and the production of more superoxide, more cytokines and messenger molecules which bound to the endothelium,” he explained. “The second important finding, which is totally novel,” Dr. Jialal said, “is that when we gave the subjects vitamin E there was a substantial reduction in the monocyte function. Obviously we showed an antioxidant effect, as we have shown in other studies, but in addition, we showed that vitamin E, in high doses, is an anti-inflammatory agent.”

Read entire article here

High-Dose Vit E Reduces Serum Levels of CRP in Diabetes – (11-29-00)

by

High-Dose Vit E Reduces Serum Levels of CRP in Diabetes

It is not surprising that Vit E may have the potential to lower the risk of heart disease in diabetics. What is surprising is that this study actually used levels considered therapeutic by researchers…1200 IU/day.

Free Radic Biol Med 2000;8:790-792 Results of a new study of type-2 diabetics indicate that high-dose vitamin E reduces levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of inflammation and a predictor of cardiovascular disease. “High dose vitamin E in all three groups reduced inflammation as seen by low levels of C-reactive protein, which we measured by a new highly sensitive assay,” Dr. Jialal told Reuters Health. The researchers also saw lower levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine, interleuken-6, which drives CRP. Both markers, Dr. Jialal explained, have previously been shown to be predictors of heart disease and stroke. “We have shown that you can modulate these markers in diabetics, which has great implications, given that in diabetes you have at least a 2-fold increased prevalence of stroke and heart attacks,” he added.

Read entire article here