Info about Vitamins

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Vitamin E Deficiency

Vitamin E, primarily a-tocopherol, acts as a freeradical scavenger and natural antioxidant to protect cell membranes against free-radical reactions or lipid peroxidation. Normal healthy individuals who consume a nutritionally adequate diet rarely develop vitamin E deficiency, and no overt deficiency symptoms have been described.


In animals, vitamin E deficiency-associated anemia was induced experimentally, with Dinning and Day in 1957 first describing vitamin E deficiency anemia in rhesus monkeys. The monkeys developed a very low reticulocyte count that was reversed by vitamin E supplementation, with subsequent correction of the anemia. Subsequent prolonged vitamin E deficiency studies in similar animals revealed normochromic and normocytic (occasional macrocytic) anemia in peripheral blood, but bone marrow examination showed hyperplasia of erythroid cells and the presence of nuclear chromatin abnormalities with multinucleated forms. A high rate of red blood cell hemolysis has also been reported. It was presumed that all these changes were the result of an abnormal erythropoiesis, but ineffective erythropoiesis was eliminated as the primary cause of anemia, since the stability of reduced glutathione, osmotic fragility, and serum iron were normal.