Vitamin E Found In Vegetable Oil Could Help Fight Cancer, Study Suggests

The verdict has not been totally clear on vitamin E's role in cancer prevention -- some research has suggested the vitamin might help to protect against cancer, while others have shown it either not having an effect on cancer risk or even increasing cancer risk.

But now, a new study in the journal Cancer Prevention Research shows that two forms of vitamin E -- found in corn, soybean and canola oils -- may have cancer-fighting properties.

"Our message is that the vitamin E form of gamma-tocopherols, the most abundant form of vitamin E in the American diet, and delta-tocopherols, also found in vegetable oils, are beneficial in preventing cancers while the form of vitamin E, alpha- tocopherol, the most commonly used in vitamin E supplements, has no such benefit," study researcher Chung S. Yang, director of the Center for Cancer Prevention Research at Rutgers, said in a statement.

Yang and his colleagues fed animals the vitamin E form that is found in the vegetable oils, and found that the gamma and delta-tocopherol forms of vitamin E worked to stop cancer from developing and growing.

Yang added that a past study in the journal Cancer Prevention Research shows that the delta-tocopheral vitamin E form stops colon cancer development in rats more so than other kinds of vitamin E.

Last year, a study of 35,533 men was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showing that taking vitamin E supplements is actually linked with an increased prostate cancer risk. However, Yang said that the vitamin E supplements in that study had the alpha-tocopherol form of vitamin E -- not the delta or gamma-tocopheral versions. Therefore, he said, more research is needed to see the effects of all the different kinds of vitamin E.

HuffPost blogger Craig Cooper, founder of Cooperative Health, wrote in a blog post last year that there are actually eight forms of vitamin E -- and some may have different effects than others on cancer.

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Comments

[DanijelBajric]

11:36 AM on 05/22/2012

Just wrote a blog post including Vitamin E in Vegitable oils on www.lifestylebydanijel.com/blog . I have to say that I love this online Newspaper! It's very informative and interesting!

[VPerry24]

02:29 PM on 05/04/2012

Most people need to be made aware that most vitamins contain the synthetic Vit E which does not good at all and the companies put it in because it is cheap, avoiding the expensive type
like d-alpha tocopherol, once you add the l, as in dl-alpha forget about it, put it back! A similar study was made a decade ago and then the medical society came out and shot it all to heck!
Sulfates and acidity feed cancer. Yes, you are what you eat!

[fitness lady22]

10:15 AM on 05/04/2012

What about Vitamin E supplements? I take these: http://www.nutritionfix.com/vitalabs-vitamin-e-400-100ea.html.

[nikki717]

04:43 PM on 05/04/2012

SPAM

[Tomtom2]

09:42 PM on 05/02/2012

After being knocked out of the top ranking by Vitamin D, Vitamin E tries to make a valiant comeback. Only time will tell if the old stalwart has what it takes to get back to it's past glory.

[1swimmom]

05:41 PM on 05/01/2012

Those are the worst junk oils you can put into your body.

[ohiopositive]

11:23 AM on 05/01/2012

Just read about Vit E perhaps causing cancer. Didn't know there were different types however. Bears some addtional reading on my part, I guess.

[warfish warfish]

06:16 AM on 05/01/2012

Want proof?
visit www.victory-over-cancer.org and judge for yerself
Vitamin E is indeed one of the things needed to fight off cancer...

[greenalva]

10:13 PM on 04/30/2012

No but cannabis can.

[GOODDOC1]

10:13 AM on 05/01/2012

Do you have any good, double-blind studies on that? I've heard (ancedotally) that it's good for the nausea from chemotherapy, though.

[VPerry24]

02:46 PM on 05/04/2012

I don't know why they still push chemotherapy when it is already obvious and studied that it does no good at all but make you even more miserable before you die, putting the strain on your already ravaged body! I would fight it with an alternative.

[spitfiredd]

04:54 PM on 04/30/2012

Organic Fair Trade Red Palm Oil.

[ccgndy]

01:05 PM on 04/30/2012

Perhaps vit E makes the cells more stable and prevents loss of electrons of radical cells.Anti-oxidants have that function, I believe.

[dsws]

01:51 PM on 04/30/2012

I think the alpha form of vitamin E, which increases cancer rates, has the same anti-oxidant effect as the gamma and delta forms that the study says may decrease cancer rates.

[librarianesque]

11:40 AM on 04/30/2012

I swear by Vitamin E. I use it on my face at night, and also, pre-infused in sunflower oil for cooking.

[J0E1]

10:53 AM on 04/30/2012

Vitamin E Found In Vegetable Oil

Hmm, let's see... .0001% chance of preventing cancer, or getting really fat... gosh, tough choice.

[handyy]

12:08 PM on 05/01/2012

AMEN. Once again, the industry keeping it's product alive after these oils that were base for paint were replaced with petroleum products. Vegetable oils and seed oils make you fat, turn rancid and poison you. They started to use the oils in animal feed to fatten them up on the cheap. How they got into the mainstream food supply is marketing and lobbying genius. All of these oils should go back to being for paint and varnish.

[wrightotcm]

10:46 AM on 04/30/2012

What this world needs is 'black strap molasses' cure anything. Like I would believe anything on a blogger writes. Their only goal is to further some cause, and usually are paid well.

[Holdenon]

10:27 AM on 04/30/2012

Ridiculous article. This is just the kind of poorly researched health information that leaves people confused and misinformed.

[dsws]

01:22 PM on 04/30/2012

What did Yang et al. do wrong? I'm not at a university, so the full-text version is behind a pay-wall.

[mariacrossbooks]

03:36 AM on 04/30/2012

Yes, but no. Vitamin E does have these benefits, and vegetable oil does contain vitamin E - until it is refined. The refining process - degumming, bleaching and deodorizing - effectively destroys any vitamin E. So to suggest that vegetable oil contains vitamin E is highly misleading. Refined vegetable oil is highly inflammatory and actually associated with cancer. I'd rethink this piece.

[dsws]

01:39 PM on 04/30/2012

This article http://jn.nutrition.org/content/81/4/335.full.pdf lists vitamin e content of oils, regular refined oil from the grocery store as well as oil that the researchers themselves extracted from corn. It also cites previously published numbers for both crude and refined oils. Some vitamin e is lost in refining, but refined oils still have appreciable amounts of it -- including the gamma and delta forms, which supplements typically do not contain.