Is the RDA/AI for Vitamin E stupidly high?

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Is the RDA/AI for Vitamin E stupidly high?

Postby karin_kiwi » Sat May 03, 2008 6:10 am

Hi Jeff

I try to log my food on FitDay (would go to the CRON-O-METER but have about 80 custom foods on FitDay that would take hours and hours to copy over). I do it to keep myself honest more than to worry about whether I'm getting all the required nutrients. But every week or two I look at the running average out of curiosity.

Generally I'm at or well over all the different vitamins and minerals that FitDay records. But there are three that I consistently get far less of than I'm "supposed" to. The "low" Vitamin D doesn't worry me - I know it's a hormone synthesized through exposure to the sun. The "low" calcium (around 700mg) doesn't worry me as I know the US recommendations are far higher than required, especially for a diet that's around 12% (plant) protein, which is what mine tends to be. But I sit at around 30% of the Vitamin E that I'm "supposed" to have - which is quite a difference. As I said, I'm not usually worried about details like this as I believe that focusing on the big picture of lowfat whole plant foods will ensure the details are taken care of. And I'm quite willing to buy that the requirements are not real, as per the calcium one. But I have found myself wondering whether I should deliberately try to incorporate more foods that have higher contents of Vitamin E.

Can you please give me your belief on how much Vitamin E is necessary (minimum) and how much you would recommend (ideal)?

Thanks!!
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Re: Is the RDA/AI for Vitamin E stupidly high?

Postby JeffN » Sat May 03, 2008 7:23 am

Hi Karin,


karin_kiwi wrote:I try to log my food on FitDay (would go to the CRON-O-METER but have about 80 custom foods on FitDay that would take hours and hours to copy over). I do it to keep myself honest more than to worry about whether I'm getting all the required nutrients. But every week or two I look at the running average out of curiosity.!


Excellent. It is good to "look" at occasionally, to see how you are doing.

karin_kiwi wrote: The "low" calcium (around 700mg) doesn't worry me as I know the US recommendations are far higher than required, especially for a diet that's around 12% (plant) protein, which is what mine tends to be.


Do not forget about the impact of sodium, which may be as important.

karin_kiwi wrote:But I sit at around 30% of the Vitamin E that I'm "supposed" to have - which is quite a difference. As I said, I'm not usually worried about details like this as I believe that focusing on the big picture of lowfat whole plant foods will ensure the details are taken care of. And I'm quite willing to buy that the requirements are not real, as per the calcium one. But I have found myself wondering whether I should deliberately try to incorporate more foods that have higher contents of Vitamin E.

Can you please give me your belief on how much Vitamin E is necessary (minimum) and how much you would recommend (ideal)?


I will give you the "simple" answer. You are generally correct. The vitamin E recommended levels are based on the intact of poly-unsaturated fats (PUFAs) in the "average" diets, which in the USA, is fairly high. The reason is, one of the main functions of Vit E in the body is to prevent oxidation and PUFA's oxidize easily. So, if you are following the recommendations here and consuming a lower fat diet with no added oils, your requirement for Vit E will be much lower, possible even 1/3 to 1/2 the DRI/RDA.

Based on the info below, If the total fat in the diet is 10% and you consume 1800 calories, that is 20 grams of fat. IF this was all PUFA, you would need about 8 mgs/day to have a ratio of Vit E/PUFA of .4. As only about 1/2 to 1/3 of it is PUFA, your requirement may be as low as 3-5 mgs a day, which is about 30% of the DRI of 15.

:)

In Health
Jeff

From

Human Vitamin and Mineral Requirements
Report of a joint FAO/WHO expert consultation
Bangkok, Thailand
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
FOOD SND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS
Rome, 2002

http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/Y2809E/y2809e0f.htm#bm15

It is suggested that when the main PUFA in the diet is linoleic acid, a d-a-tocopherol-PUFA ratio of 0.4 (expressed as mg tocopherol per g PUFA) is adequate for adult humans (44, 45), and the ratio has been recommended in the United Kingdom for infant formulas (46). Use of this ratio to calculate the vitamin E requirements of men and women with energy intakes of 2550 and 1940 kcal/day containing PUFA at 6 percent of the energy intake (approximately 17 and 13 g, respectively) (42) produced values of 7 and 5 mg/day of a-TEs, respectively. In both the United States and the United Kingdom, median intakes of a-TE are in excess of these amounts and the a-tocopherol-PUFA ratio is approximately 0.6 (47), which is well above the 0.4 ratio which would be considered adequate.
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Postby JeffN » Sat May 03, 2008 7:30 am

PS Interesting that in general, Vit E is found in foods that are higher in fat (except for a few green leafies). So, in nature, if you ate more fat, you also got along with it, more Vit E as it occurred in higher amounts in the fattier foods. The Vit E was protecting the food in the plant and protecting you once you ate the food. However, in our modern processed refined diets, we eat foods high in fat, that have the Vit E removed in the processing. The irony of all of this, is that if you want to meet the RDA for Vit E, you usually have to eat some higher fat foods (nuts, seeds). But, then your need for Vit E also goes up, but only because you are now eating a higher fat diet. So, when people recommend eating more nuts/seeds to meet Vit E requirements, they are both "right" and "wrong" at the same time. :)

PSS This is also why you also heard of studies where they feed people high fat meals with and without Vit E supplements and why the group that gets the Vit E supplement shows less oxidative "damage" from the high fat meal.

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Jeff
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Postby karin_kiwi » Sat May 03, 2008 4:00 pm

Thanks Jeff! I'll stop worrying, especially as I had noticed that most of the foods that seemed to have significant Vit E were higher fat and I'm trying not to go over an average (day/week) of 10% fat.

dlb, you give me some hope. I loathe sweet potatoes, yams, kumara, anything like that. Last year I had dinner at someone's house and they'd gone out of their way (so I had to eat it) to make me a vegan casserole - consisting mostly of sweet potatoes. I managed to eat about 2/3 of it (it was large, so 2/3 seemed like a 'reasonable' quantity). Oh, I felt so queasy and awful. There were a few moments I thought I wasn't going to be able to keep it down. Just remembering this is making my stomach churn!

It's a real nuisance hating the sweet tubers, eggplant and avocado, since one or more of them seem to be compulsory for any vegan dish cooked by restaurants and other people. What happened to white potatoes, rice, pasta?
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Re: Is the RDA/AI for Vitamin E stupidly high?

Postby jamietwo » Sun Aug 26, 2012 7:34 am

what foods are highest in Vitamin E
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Re: Is the RDA/AI for Vitamin E stupidly high?

Postby JeffN » Sun Aug 26, 2012 7:46 am

jamietwo wrote:what foods are highest in Vitamin E


Here is a list of the foods highest in Vitamin E per calorie (200 calories).

Vegetables

Spinach, frozen, chopped or leaf, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 21mg

Chard, swiss, raw Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 20mg

Radicchio, raw Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 20mg

Chard, swiss, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 19mg

Turnip greens, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 19mg

Watercress, raw Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 18mg

Spinach, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 18mg

Mustard greens, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 16mg

Broccoli raab, cooked [Broccoli rabe, Rapini] Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 15mg


Nuts/Seeds

Seeds, sunflower seed kernels, dried Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 11mg

Nuts, almonds [Includes USDA commodity food A256, A264] Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 9mg

Nuts, hazelnuts or filberts Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 5mg

Nuts, pine nuts, dried Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 3mg

Nuts, brazilnuts, dried, unblanched Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 2mg Calories: 200

Fruits

Blackberries, raw Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 5mg

Papayas, raw Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 4mg

Peaches, raw Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 4mg

Apricots, raw [Includes USDA commodity food A386] Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 4mg

Nectarines, raw Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 3mg

So, you can see, green leafy veggies are the richest source by far.

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