Talk:Vitamin E

Good article nomination?

I had nominated this for GA review in March 2018, then withdrew the nomination in June 2018, as no reviewer had taken up the task. I intend to renominate it after Thiamine goes through the GA process. If that succeeds, it will be the 11th vitamin I've raised to GA, leaving only E and D. David notMD (talk) 17:19, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

And I meant to add, all improvements to the article are welcome. David notMD (talk) 00:22, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

US Preventive Services Task Force review

@David notMD I have come across this source [1] I think it is high-quality and would belong on the article. I have not got full access to the source but there is also a press release about its findings [2]. The review concluded "The USPSTF also concludes with moderate certainty that there is no net benefit of supplementation with vitamin E for the prevention of cardiovascular disease or cancer." Do you think we should mention this in the "Cancer health claims" section? Psychologist Guy (talk) 13:15, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Psychologist Guy I agree. It's a review of a huge amount of lit by an authorative group in a high quality journal. Go ahead and add it, or if too much trouble, I'm willing to do it. P.S. Not relevant to the topic, but father and one brother psychologists, another brother and two sisters-in-law MSW therapists in private practice. My spouse arts therapist. Our daughter a coach for artists with ADHD. David notMD (talk) 14:30, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi thanks for the response, I would appreciate if you could add it in as you would be better at summarizing the source than me. Looks like your family is well qualified. My dad is a psychologist as was my grandfather, I did study it but dropped out to everyone's disappointment. Psychologist Guy (talk) 18:04, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

text with ref for PMID 35727271 added to cancer and cardio subsections in Research. David notMD (talk) 21:14, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Refs update

Checking for newer refs for the Research section David notMD (talk) 14:22, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

GA nomination

Nominated. Now (waiting for a reviewer) is a good time to improve the article. David notMD (talk) 00:59, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Vitamin E/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Etriusus (talk · contribs) 04:04, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I'll review this, always glad to see a Vital Article come through here. Immediately, I am worried about the handful of citation needed tags and the glaring number of sentences that are missing sources. I will keep the review open for now (until 12/15), since I am familiar with the general quality of your work, but I won't go much further until these issues are resolved. Once this is resolved, we can discuss a time frame for the rest of the page. I understand these topic can take time, vital articles tend to be a long haul. Thankfully, my degree is related close enough to this topic (Human Biology) for me to give a relatively technical review of the article. Etrius ( Us) 04:04, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Please use a  Done, strikethrough or some other means of indicating an issue is resolved..

Images

• File:Tocopherols.svg
• File:Tocopherol, alpha-.svg
• File:Beta-tocopherol.png
• File:Gamma-tocopherol.png
• File:Delta-tocopherol.png
• File:Tocopheryl acetate.png

Technically, there is nothing inherently wrong with this copyright. That being said, a structural formula copyright (see File:Alpha-Tocopherol Structural Formulae V.1.svg) is more accurate. No other issues noted with the copyrights.

Copy-vios

• I'll continue to make spot-checks as this goes on.

Earwig only flags 3-4 word proper nouns and phrases that really can't be reworded.

Sources

The missing citation issue has been raised above.

•  Done Prasad K (2011). "Tocotrienols and cardiovascular health". Current Pharmaceutical Design. link should be added

Prose

• All the external links have been checked, they are still live.
•  Done The see also section should be cut, Tocopherol & Tocotrienol are already linked

Intro

•  Done Vitamin E deficiency, which is rare and usually... move to the end of the paragraph
• No'2,000 mg' convert template (ounces for all the Americans in the room)
• Fixed 'The authors' either specify or generalize
• No; all vitamins have hitory as last paragraph of Lead Frankly, the second paragraph should go at the end. It is chronologically out of order.
• Fixed Does the 3rd paragraph need to be on its own? It is a single sentence and works better at the end of paragraph 5.
•  Done Both natural and synthetic tocopherols... Move to end of paragraph
•  Done Specify in the beginning that there are 5 tocopheryles, 4 natural and 1 sythentic (tocopheryl acetate)

Chemistry

• The nutritional content... move to later in the paragraph, it doesn't make sense to introduce a RRR configuration before explaining methyl groups, adding to the end would work.
• R" sites You and I know what this means but specify this is a functional group. I can potentially read like its a chiral center
• 'stereoisomers' If memory serves, this is not the correct term. I get what the page is going for, in respect to the tail, those specific segments are stereoisomers (enantiomers, diastereomers, etc). That being said the structures of each type of tocopherols, as a whole, are not isomers. Perhaps 'phytyl tail chirality' or 'stereochemistry' would be more accurate.

Furthermore, why is this its own section? Tocotrienols subsection breaks down the stereochemistry within its own section

• 'reaction from continuing' be more specific. I assume Vitamin E acts in a fairly specific way as a reducing agent. I would help drive home the biological importance if more specificity of what the lipid radicals damage.
• 'electrophilic mutagens' so, acids. Radicals, are generally electrophilic, seems a bit WP:TECHNICAL. This also implies these radicals act on DNA, which would be good to mention.

'unique properties' Technically, nucleophile-electrophile rxns are stupidly common, and by definition pretty much all radical breakdowns are nuc-ele reactions. The sentence as a whole sounds nice but isn't really saying much.

• 'hydrophobic side chains' you mean unsaturated side chains, saturated side chains are also hydrophobic
• Palm oil is a good source of alpha and gamma tocotrienols out of place sentence
• two corresponding centers This should be reworded
• There is plenty of space, why not add the 4 Tocotrienols' structures to the box?
• which would have a 2S rather than 2R configuration at the molecules' single chiral center redundant, also a bit confusing since it hasn't been established prior that dextrorotatory = R.
• unlike synthetic dl-alpha-tocopherol keep the terms consistent. Also, is this needed? perhaps saying an S config is theoretically possible but not commercially made gets the point across just fine.

Function

• Vitamin E affects gene expression Needs to be expanded significantly. A cursory search has turned up a number of sources

Biosysthesis

• chemical family of compounds made up of four tocopherols and four tocotrienols reword

are 'tocochromanols' the general classification for all vitamin E? Only in plants? This isn't clear why new terms are being brought up

• and plants that through mutations have lost the ability to synthesize α-tocopherol demonstrate normal growth. reword sentence, order of ideas is confusion
• 'normal synthesis capacity' specify
• ' reverse is true' specify
• 'same article mentions' not encyclopedic wording, needs to just be stated in a matter-of-fact way
• 'Focusing on tocopherols' same as above
• 'caustic soda' link
• ' The synthetic has 73.5% ' The synthetic version has...
• extra '</ref>'

Deficiency

• nerve problems reword to neurological problems

Dietary recommendations

• Fixed The Japan National Institute of Health.. sentence is clunky
• Fixed '...is an outlier' could be misconstrued as subtle WP:POV. I don't disagree, still recommend rewording to make this wording is simpler
• Most countries do not have vitamin dietary recommendations Overall, this section is very well written. I'd love to see more countries represented.

Sources

•  Done Worldwide, consumption is below recommendations according to a summary of more than one hundred studies... repeat sentence, cut the preceding sentence or reword.
• common form found in the North American diet any other diets/continents?

Metabolism

• 'vitamers' I feel like this an important term that should have been brought up sooner
• and all of the vitamin E vitamers are metabolized and then excreted via urine. unclear on what this means. I assume this means un-excreted bile.
• so this appears to be a means of disposing of excess vitamin E I would hope urine is an excretory process. Rather redundant info
• 'chiral 2 site' 2nd chiral site reads better
• A rare genetic defect of the TTPA gene results in people exhibiting a progressive neurodegenerative disorder known as ataxia with vitamin E deficiency (AVED) despite consuming normal amounts of vitamin E. Large amounts of alpha-tocopherol as a dietary supplement are needed to compensate for the lack of α-TTP repetitive, cut
• As an example of a result of the preferential treatment, the US diet delivers approximately 70 mg/d of γ-tocopherol and plasma concentrations are on the order of 2–5 µmol/L; meanwhile, dietary α-tocopherol is about 7 mg/d but plasma concentrations are in the range of 11–37 µmol/L Info is out of place

Testing for levels

•  Done section is arbitrary. The info could be split between Dietary recommendations and Deficiency

Research

•  Done Rename section to 'health effects' or something in that same vein
• Removed text, as it was interpretive, i.e., original research For the conditions described below... What is the purpose of this paragraph. It reads more like a disclaimer than a wiki article.

• Shortened This whole section seems to be going a bit too much in depth on the studies, especially the 'cancer' section. I get the need to explain but breaking down methodology isn't really necessary. Try to keep this focused on the health effects. As a whole, this section should be pared down
• Not possible to have a ref for what the EFSA has not done, so sentence removed The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) reviews proposed health claims for the European Union countries. As of September 2022,, EFSA has not evaluated any vitamin E and cancer prevention claims. missing citation

There are a number of instances where I'd love to see more coverage on other countries, or at least mention that other countries do not have dietary recommendations. On a broader scale, I am concerned that there is a no 'function' section. The Anti-oxidant function is buried in the chemistry section and the specific functions are spread amongst the entire article. This make it somewhat difficult to get a read on what Vitamin E actual does. This review was a beast but here are the first set of edits. I'll put this on hold but there is going to be some serious legwork ahead. Etrius ( Us) 05:02, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

@David notMD, any update? The review has been live for a week now and I don't see any progress made (assuming you aren't drafting something). Do you have an idea of when you'll get around to this? I understand that this is a long one and the holidays are coming up so I'm more than willing to accommodate. Especially with Vital Articles, I'd love to see them pass, but I do expect you to be actively working on it if able. If something is unclear in my recommendations, please let me know either here or in the talk page discussion. Etrius ( Us) 19:21, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Overly broad conclusion from reference 10

The following statement in this article:

There is use of vitamin E in skincare and wound-treatment products, but no clinical evidence that it is effective.

Uses reference 10 as support.

Reference 10 merely examined the question of the whether or not the topical use of Vitamin E during wound healing improves the cosmetic appearance of scarring after healing. There is no mention of any other potential benefits such as healing rate, inflammation reduction, or reduced infection rates.

There may still be no clinical evidence of any benefit from topical application of vitamin E. But, this reference is not sufficient support to come to that conclusion. Seanmcd27 (talk) 00:36, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Canola oil / Rapeseed oil

The section Sources lists foods and their mg of vitamin E/100g of the food. But it lists "Canola/rapeseed oil" as 44 and "Canola oil" as 17.5. Clicking on the hyperlinks – canola, rapeseed, and canola oil – takes one to these pages: Rapeseed oil, Rapeseed, and Rapeseed oil again. The Rapeseed oil page quotes the 17.5 figure – but not as the α-tocopherol content, simply as vitamin E content – and cites fdc.nal.usda.gov. The Rapeseed one doesn’t list contents.

The section says “The last major revision was Release 28, September 2015.”. The USDA website says that release 28 is not going to be updated, and that this data is to be found via the Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS). (So instead of typing in the food and seeing the values for it, one has to download a 6Mb spreadsheet and search in it!)

Going to the cited site, fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/748278/nutrients, one can read that canola oil’s vitamin E content is made up of four of the eight vitamin E compounds, and it gives these averages, again in mg/100g: α-tocopherol, 17.3 ... γ-tocopherol, 41.3 ... δ-tocopherol, 1.48 ... and β-tocotrienol, 8.07.

And going to the FNDDS site, it confirms the 17.3 figure, but not the other three, which it doesn’t mention.

So why is α-tocopherol used as a proxy for vitamin E content? Why the 44 figure for "Canola/rapeseed oil"? And why this 17.5 figure, and not 17.3? It appears that there could be a mistake somewhere along the line, or at least, a bit of confused explanation. If there isn’t, a sentence of explanation would help, I.M.O. Nick Barnett (talk) 14:57, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Omega-6 interactions

A key concern with vitamin E is its relationship with readily oxidized linoleic acid. This fatty acid is unstable but associated with vitamin E. Hence, linoleic in the diet confounds research based on 'independent' changes in vitamin E doses or those that achieve vitamin E through the diet via ingestion of vegetables. Further, oxidation of linoleic acid is likely to manifest in chronic diseases that may take a decade or so to arise. Few studies have been designed with these mechanisms in mind. Another confounder is the intake of vitamin C, which provides 'recharging' of vitamin E that has neutralized an ROS. Finally, with its brain and muscles, the human body represents a substantively more oxidizing condition than that found in plants, and it is reasonable to entertain the idea that the humans need more vitamin E relative to plants. Drmartz (talk) 20:16, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

All of that is your personal opinion, not supported by any medical reviews that we can cite on Wikipedia. Your comments about linoleic acid and manifestation of chronic diseases is a typical conspiracy theory talking point promoted by carnivore diet and low-carb diet influencers, it isn't supported by any good medical evidence. We have an article on Linoleic acid (LA) which notes consumption of LA is associated with a lowered risk of CVD. This review looked at tissue levels of of linoleic acid on over 68k people for 31.9 years, the results found that higher levels of LA were significantly associated with lower risks of total CVD, cardiovascular mortality, and ischemic stroke [3]. So your comments are not correct. Psychologist Guy (talk) 21:03, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

This is quite interesting because I do not have a personal opinion about 'all of that.' I am citing verifiable facts, not assembling them, as far as I know. The molecule called cardiolipin is known to be less stable when constituted with linoleic acid versus DHA. Certainly, the science behind DHA is well known. These same conditions apply when cell membranes need to be populated with a higher frequency of DHA versus linoleic acid as is a well known condition in neurons. Vitamin E is a critical anti-oxidant for linoleic acid. This is also well known, and since it is packaged with omega-6 fatty acids when it arrives in whole foods, how could it not represent a confounder? If you check with any of the GPT models, they will confirm the particulars. I wasn't intending to sound like the whole picture was clear, merely that these are reasons why studies of the effect of vitamin E tend to be inconclusive or contradictory. I am a bit confused by your reference to medical evidence. Most of my comment was about known metabolic pathways and can be confirmed on Wikipedia, so it is biological, not medical. Does basic biology not count? 2603:8000:683E:4000:B069:6F36:B9E6:EBDA (talk) 23:39, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry but nobody cares about your personal opinions, nor mine. We need WP:RS. You are using this talk-page as a forum. If you have no references to cite and improve this article you are just wasting your own and other editors time here. We only go with what reliable sources say on this topic and yes most of these will be from medical reviews or textbooks. If you believe studies on the effect of Vitamin E are inconclusive that is your opinion, we can't cite that. As stated we need good sources. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:51, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Hoping to cool the temperature here. In response to "Does basic biology not count?" Every article needs references. If there is a relevant Wikipedia article, a Wikilink can be made to it, but if there is referenced content in that article it should be copied - along with refs - into the vitamin E article. A statement along the lines of "oxidation of linoleic acid is likely to manifest in chronic diseases that may take a decade or so to arise" must have WP:MEDRS references in support. Same for "it is reasonable to entertain the idea that the humans need more vitamin E relative to plants." David notMD (talk) 00:02, 25 April 2024 (UTC)