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Lee Swanson Research Update
Vitamin E Tocotrienols Show Cholesterol Benefits
July 2011
Vitamin E tocotrienol-rich supplements may improve blood cholesterol levels and reduce the risk of heart disease, especially in people over 50, says a new study from Malaysia.
Daily use of a tocotrienol-rich supplement increased the ratio of HDL cholesterol to total cholesterol—reported to be the most specific lipid risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD)—by 14% in people over 50, compared to a decrease of about five percent in the placebo group.
The vitamin E-rich supplements were also associated with increased activity in a number of antioxidant enzymes, compared to decreases in the placebo group.
"Our results indicate that daily supplementation for up to six months raised plasma HDL cholesterol levels as early as three months, thereby increasing the HDL cholesterol/total cholesterol ratio," researchers from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia reported.
"Vitamin E tocotrienols might thus help to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) in healthy older adults. In fact, HDL cholesterol increases of the magnitude observed in this study have been associated with a 22.5% reduced risk of cardiovascular events," they added.
The Malaysian researchers recruited 62 subjects and randomly assigned them to receive either placebo or 160 mg a day of the tocotrienol-rich supplement for six months.
At the end of the study period, results showed that only the participants over the age of 50 experienced increases in vitamin E levels after six months of supplementation. However, both age groups (35-49 and over 50s) displayed an improvement in the ratio of HDL to total cholesterol in both age groups after supplementation, compared to placebo.
The researchers also reported an increase in the activity of various antioxidant enzymes, including superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase in participants receiving the vitamin E supplementation.
"Our data revealed an age-related increase in oxidative damage," the researchers reported. "We established a role of nutritional supplementation in oxidative damage and antioxidant levels in older individuals.
"The protective effects of tocotrienol-rich supplementation observed in this study might represent a restoration of redox [reduction-oxidation] balance, particularly in the over 50-year-old group," they added.
Nutrition & Metabolism 8(1):42, 2011
