VITAMIN E

Almost everyone who has ever swallowed a vitamin of any kind knows a bit about vitamin E.
Mostly they know that it is a fat soluble vitamin that is a powerful antioxidant. But few know what vitamin E actually is.
Vitamin E is the generic name for a group of compounds known as tocopherols and the lesser known, tocotrienols.
Each has four different structures or isomers that are designated as alpha, beta, gamma and delta.
What may surprise you most about vitamin E is that although scientists know that it is important for muscle function, they don’t know exactly why.
That is until now.
Researchers from Georgia Health Sciences University recently uncovered how precisely vitamin E contributes to muscle function.
They discovered that tears in muscle membranes would not heal unless the muscle cells were treated with vitamin E. As you already know, vitamin E is a powerful antioxidant, which means it stops free radicals from causing further damage to cells, such as muscle cells. These free radicals prevent muscle tears from healing. You also know that vitamin E is fat soluble. The membrane of a muscle cell is essentially made of fats. Because vitamin E is fat soluble, it actually inserts itself into the membrane where it prevents the free radicals from attacking the membrane, and therefore allowing the tears to heal.


Jim’s take-home point:
When you work out you cause tears in the muscle cell membranes AND you increase free radical production. So getting in adequate vitamin E is absolutely critical for anyone who exercises.
I suggest supplementing with 400-800 IU of vitamin E per day and consider taking it with your preworkout shake on workout days.

But don’t just grab ANY kind of vitamin E supplement.
I have some critical tips to help you pick out a suitable vitamin E supplement.
First off, be sure that the vitamin E you choose provides at least all four of the forms of tocopherols: alpha, gamma, beta, and delta.
If it also contains some tocotrienols, even better. Although alpha tocopherol is the most critical form of vitamin E, particularly for muscle membrane repair, you also want to be sure to get in some of the gamma, beta, and delta, too. Each one offers distinct benefits in the body, and research shows that a mix of the isomers has the greatest range of benefits. For instance, gamma tocopherol can help to inhibit cancer growth. Plus, supplementation of only alpha tocopherol has been found to reduce levels of the other isomers in the body.
And second, be sure the vitamin E you choose uses natural forms of vitamin E and not synthetic.
While both are absorbed to the same degree, the natural form is more than two times more bioactive within the body. Only about half of the synthetic Vitamin E is treated as the preferred natural Vitamin E by the liver and the rest is predominantly excreted down the toilet.
So how do you tell if a vitamin E supplement is natural or synthetic?
By the letters “l” and “d”. If it lists dl-alpha tocopherol, it's synthetic. But if it lists d-alpha tocopherol (no "l" after the "d"), then it's the natural form and is most likely derived from vegetable oils.


So if you’re serious about your muscle growth and your health, be sure to supplement with vitamin E every day.

Reference:
Howard, A. C., et al. Promotion of plasma membrane repair by vitamin E. Nature Communications, 2011; 2: 597.