Results from Dr. Simin Meydani, D.V.M., Ph.D., Assistant Prof. of Nutrition at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University (Medford, Mass.) and Robert P. Tengerdy, Ph.D., Professor of Microbiology at Colorado State U. (Fort Collins) indicate that vitamin E is a powerful immune system stimulator.
      E appears to enhance the ability of white blood cells to destroy invading agents such as bacteria, and to modulate biosynthesis of the chemicals that control inflammation as well as to boost T-helper cell activity.
      The mechanism of action involves modulation of phagocytic activity, an early shift from IgM to IgG type antibody production.

      In the immune system, prostaglandins generally have an inhibitory effect. Vitamin E appears to inhibit the synthesis of prostaglandins.

      Dr. Kursheed Jeejeebhoy, of the U. of Toronto determined in 1990 that smokers breathe out more pentane, a gas that is given off when cells are being attacked by free radicals.
      Next, for two weeks, Dr. Jeejeebhoy gave 800 IU of vitamin E daily to 13 smokers who consumed an average of 24 cigarettes a day. He discovered that the pentane gas exhaled by them after they started vitamin E supplementation dropped by about 40%, indicating that E curbed a great deal of cellular damage.

      A study presented on 9/22/92 to a Harvard School of Public Health cancer forum, by Columbia School of Public Health researcher Regina Santella, found that vitamin E protects against carcinogens in cigarette smoke.
      Using antibodies to DNA adducts (adducts result from carcinogen/DNA binding, which can block replication and lead to cancer), in a trial of 63 heavy smokers and 27 non-smokers, the researchers found more than three times as many DNA adducts in the smoking group.
      Smokers with higher vitamin E levels had significantly lower levels of adducts.
      Vitamin E may curtail formation of DNA adducts, though larger studies are needed to confirm the result.
[Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore reports that low physiological levels of vitamin E appear to increase the risk for all types of lung cancer by about 2.5 times.]

      A study in 1992, directed by the National Cancer Institute, involving 1,100 oral cancer patients and 1,300 healthy controls, compared the use of vitamins (incl. A, C, E, minerals and multivitamins) with the risk of oral cancer.
      Conclusion: people who take regular vitamin E supplements have half the chance of developing oral cancer as those who don't, when smoking, drinking and other risk factors are accounted for.
[The amount of E in many multivitamins (~ 30 IU) didn't seem to offer protection; individual supplements of 100 IU and higher did.]
[American Journal of Epidemiology, 11/92]

      Preliminary results from Finland studies of 36,000 men and women indicate that those with high blood levels of vitamin E had less cancer and fewer deaths from cancer. Low levels of vitamin E in the people involved in the study indicated a greater risk of breast and stomach cancer.

      Vitamin E can block the formation of nitrosamines (potent cancer- causing chemicals formed in the saliva and gastrointestinal tract from the combinations of nitrates and amines in food), and protect lung tissue from the harmful effects of air-borne environmental pollutants.

      Vitamin E prevents low-density lipoprotein from becoming modified LDL. In other words, the vitamin prevents the conversion of harmless low- density lipoprotein into the oxidized compound that is recognized and ingested by macrophages (when they die, the fat-filled macrophages accumulate into deadly arterial plaque).
[Hermann Esterbauer, Prof. of Biochemistry, U. of Graz, Austria; J.C.   Fruchart, Pasteur Institute, Lille, France; Sai R. Ramasastry, M.D.,   medical director, Dept. of Hyperbaric Medicine, Presbyterian-University   Hospital, Pittsburg, etc]

[Dr. Ramasastry also concluded from a study of 10 patients who either   received 400 I.U. of E or a placebo daily, that vitamin E as an   antioxident prevents skin ulceration in chronic vein insufficiency:
  "Ninety percent of patients with deep vein thrombosis - that is, blood clots in the deep internal veins - will eventually develop chronic venous insufficiency which leads to skin ulceration fron reduced blood flow.
It's believed that increased lipoperoxidation at the site of skin ulceration is one of the causes of breakdown     of skin grafts; thus a means of reducing lipoperoxidation could aid in healing these patients."]

      Harvard University's School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston) researchers published a study in the 5/20/93 New England Journal of Medicine (one of several on-going) that found an association between as much as 14x the daily recommended allowance of vitamin E for at least two years, and a reduced risk of heart disease, by as much as 40 percent.
      The studies, involving more than 87,000 female nurses in 11 states (and 45,000 male health care professionals in the Boston area), disclosed that a 40% decline in heart disease was found in the women only when they looked at those particpants who took an average of 100 - 400 International Units (I.U.) of E per day, and compared them with those who took only 6.4 I.U. daily.
[RDA for adults = 30 I.U. Researcher Dr. Meir J. Stampfer, who reported at an annual meeting of the American Heart Association (11/17/92), said he had expected the studies to demonstrate a LACK of benefit to taking E:
      "It didn't seem plausible that a simple maneuver like taking vitamin E would have such a profound effect."
      "The women who took vitamin E supplements were not different in terms of their life style and general health status when compared to nonusers of supplements. This leads us to believe that vitamin E has a very strong protective effect."

      In the study of men (directed by Dr. Eric B. Rimm of Harvard), those who consumed more than 60 units of E/day were 36% less likely to develop heart disease than were the men who consumed less than 7.5 units/day.
      Men taking supplememts of 100 units or more/day for at least two years had a 37% lower risk than those who took no supplements.
[The longer the use of E, the greater the benefit. Frank Speizer, who led the women's study, said the level of E from foods had no effect.]
      Long-term, double-blind clinical trials to elucidate the findings (that will eliminate other beneficial factors such as aspirin use and exercise) are under way.

[Dr. William Castelli, director of the landmark Framingham Heart Study: "Americans are always looking for a magic bullet. They should be watching their total diet and adding vitamin E to that. If you go and pig out at the local greasery, vitamin E is not going to help very much."]

      Vitamin C greatly enhances the ability of vitamin E to prevent damage to LDL, which, if damaged, is suspected of being the first step in the progression to heart disease.
[Dr. Lester Packer, molecular biologist, U. of California/Berkeley (Journal of Lipid Research)]

      A study of monkeys by Dr. Anthony J. Verlangieri at the U. of Mississippi, suggested that E may not only help prevent arteries from clogging, but may even help to unclog them.
      Verlangieri fed groups of monkey either (1) ordinary monkey chow, (2) a high-lard-and-cholesterol diet w/ a placebo pill or (3) a high-fat diet laced with a daily dose of 100 IU of vitamin E.
      After three years, the regular-chow monkeys had no artery blockage. The fat-chow, placebo-pill group showed 87% blockage. The fat-chow group who also got vitamin E had only 1/3 the blockage.
      Six monkeys given vitamin E for two years after their arteries had become partially blocked, showed dramatic de-clogging, decreasing from 33% to 8% blockage.

      Dr. Scott Grundy, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the U. of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas fed volunteers 500 mg. of vitamin E/day (10x the amount found in the diet), and then tested the LDL cholesterol molecules in their blood. They found the cholesterol had been rendered resistant to oxidation.       Vitamin C and beta-carotene hindered, but did not completely block oxidation.
      Dr. Donald Mickle, associate professor of clinical biochemistry at Toronto Hospital, reported that water-soluble vitamin E was able to mitigate some of the damage to heart cells during the "reperfusion" period of heart attack victims, when blood flow resumes after a clot has been removed from a blood vessel.

      Dr. Richard Weisel, of the U. of Toronto, reported in Nov. 1990 that vitamin E is washed away from the blood by heart-lung machines during coronary bypass surgery, and large doses of E adminstered two weeks before surgery helps to maintain aerobic metabolism in the heart.

      A study by Dr. Ishwarlal Jialal of the U. of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, described at the 1/92 meeting of the American Heart Association in Galveston, demonstrated that men who were given 800 units of vitamin E a day for three months experienced cessations of bloodstream chemical changes that preceed arterial blockage. Dr. Jialal noted that at the levels used in the study, vitamin E "has no bad side effects."

      Dr. Jean Luc Cadet of the Columbia U. College of Physicians and Surgeons has found that E reduces symptoms of tardive dyskinesia which appears in 20 to 30% of people taking antipsychotic medications. 13 of 15 patients taking E supplements for four weeks had symptom severity reduced by half. Vitamin E appears to work by protecting the brain from free- radical damage.
[ Dr. Stanley Fahn, director of Parkinsonism and movement disorder research at Columbia notes that people in early stages of Parkinson's disease who take vitamin E (3200 I.U.) and C (3,000 mg) supplements show much slower progression of the disease. ]
      Dr. Stewart Factor, of the Dept. of Neurology, Albany Medical College/NY, agrees that E may slow the progression of Parkinson's.
      Dr. Factor's study involved 14 patients who took between _400_ (emphasis mine) and 3200 I.U. of vitamin E daily for an average of seven years. When compared to matched controls, the vitamin E-supplememted group had significantly less damage.

      Researchers at Central Middlesex Hospital in London reported in 1992 that a lack of antioxidant chemicals such as vitamins E and beta-carotene might accelerate degenerative processes in the brain.
      Blood levels of E, A and other vegetable constituents were measured in 20 demented and 20 healthy patients. The dementia sufferers had significantly lower blood levels of E and beta-carotene. Alzheimer's patients also had less vitamin A.

      Researcher Simin Meydani of Tufts University, Boston, believes that vitamin E may reverse effects of aging on the immune system by protecting against age-related oxidation.

      Preliminary results from Dr. Paul Sternberg of Emory U. School of Medicine in Atlanta, suggest that vitamin E supplements may protect the eyes against age-related damage and the degenerative effects of everyday ultraviolet light exposure.

      A study directed by Dr. M. Christina Leske of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and published in the Feb. 91 issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology, concluded that older people who regularly use multivitamin supplements were 37 percent less likely to have cataracts.
      The study was based on 1,380 people between the ages of 40-79 who were treated at two Boston hospitals. The key nutrients were suspected to be vitamins A and E.

      Lester Packer of California's Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory notes that excessive exposure to the sun may lead to skin cancer by destroying vitamins C and E (and other antioxidants) which protect cells from damage from ultraviolet radiation.

      Dr. Helen Gensler, of the U. of Arizona College of Medicine and Cancer Center/Tucson, at a 4/91 Atlanta meeting on nutrition and cancer (sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and the National Cancer Institute), reported that vitamin E oil applied to the skin may drastically cut skin cancer risk.
      Her experiments were based on past research which found a key similarity between humans and mice: those whose immune systems are supressed by UVB light are at highest risk for skin cancer.
      Dr. Gensler exposed 70 mice to UVB light 30 minutes a day, five days a week for three months. Half had vitamin E oil applied for three weeks before exposure, then three times a week while exposed. The rest had no protection.
      The 35 vitamin E-protected mice were not immune-supressed; the unprotected ones were. Without E, 81% developed skin cancers, compared with 42% of those treated with vitamin E oil.
[ DL-alpha-tocopherol vitamin E was used, not the version containing acetate, often sold as a cosmetic cream. ]

      Researchers at the Dept. of Agriculture's Human Nutrition Research Center have shown that vitamin E taken before exercise can minimize muscle damage (caused by oxygen radicals) and reduce imflammation and soreness that can follow a demanding exercise routine.
     Subjects took 800 I.U. of E/day for seven days before running downhill on a treadmill for 45 minutes (half took the vitamin, half a look-alike placebo).
      Those taking E produced far fewer fat oxidation by-products. A benefit was noted in men over 55 as well as those in their 20's.
      Vitamin E also reduced blood levels of two chemical messengers that promote inflammation.

      Dr. Robert S. London of North Charles Hospital in Baltimore reports that women suffering from pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS) report a 27 to 42% decrease in symptom severity after receiving 400 IU of vitamin E daily. Dr. London suspects that E activates brain neurotransmitters (four to six weeks before results are discernable).
[ A 1990 study at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, involving 10 women with, and 10 women without, PMS, found that 70% of the PMS women had abnormally low zinc levels during the symptom phase. Study director C. James Chuong believes that zinc spurs the secretion of   hormones such as progesterone, and that too little zinc causes a plunge in progesterone, altering brain chemistry. ]
[ A 1991 study by Dr. James Penland of the Human Nutrition Research Center, a part of the Agricultural Research Service in Grand Forks, N.D., concluded that women who doubled the calcium in their diets suffered fewer physical and psychological discomforts associated with menstruation. 10 women were followed for 5 1/2 months, and comsumed 1300 mg. of calcium/day. They reported "significantly fewer problems" with mood swings common to PMS, as well as fewer aches and pains. ]

      Vitamin E is also being looked at as a treatment for fibrocystic breast disease (benign but painful), retrolental fibroplasia (eye disorder causing blindness in infants), intermittent claudication (circulatory disorder of the legs resulting in painful cramps), as well as possibly alleviating some of the distressful symptoms of menopause.