Your Vitamin E Is Probably Missing Its Most Important Half

Check the label on your vitamin E.

If it says "d-alpha tocopherol" or "dl-alpha tocopheryl acetate" and nothing else, you are taking one form out of four.

And that one form pushes another one out of your blood.

Alpha and gamma do different jobs

Alpha-tocopherol is the form with the highest classic vitamin activity. That is why supplements are built around it.

Gamma-tocopherol is the main form in the US diet. A study in PNAS found a basic chemical difference between the two:

• Gamma reacts with nitrogen dioxide, a reactive nitrogen compound, and neutralizes it.
• Alpha reacts with the same compound and forms a nitrosating agent, a reactive compound you do not want more of.

In the same paper gamma was also stronger than alpha at blocking the transformation of cells toward cancer in a lab model.

Alpha alone pushes gamma out

This is the part most people miss.

184 adults took 400 IU of alpha-tocopherol or a placebo every day for 2 months. In the alpha group, blood gamma-tocopherol dropped by a median of 58%. Fewer people had detectable delta-tocopherol.

The authors suggest this may be one reason the big alpha-only trials disappointed: the benefit of alpha was offset by the loss of gamma and delta.

What to look for

• Mixed tocopherols: alpha, beta, gamma and delta on the label
• High gamma content
• No seed oil as the carrier (soybean, sunflower, safflower)

This is the one I use. It is the richest in gamma-tocopherol that I have found:

The honest part

The gamma advantage comes from chemistry and cell studies. There is no large human trial that compares gamma against alpha for hard outcomes. The 58% drop in gamma, though, was measured in people in a randomized trial.

Quick answers

What is the difference between alpha and gamma tocopherol?

Both are forms of vitamin E. Alpha has the highest classic vitamin activity. Gamma is the main form in the US diet and neutralizes nitrogen dioxide, which alpha does not do.

Does alpha-tocopherol lower gamma-tocopherol?

Yes. In a randomized trial of 184 adults, 400 IU of alpha-tocopherol a day for 2 months reduced blood gamma-tocopherol by a median of 58%.