But vitamin E is actually a general term for a group of eight different compounds. There are four different tocopherols and there are four tocotrienols. They occur in different foods in varying proportions. For those of you who still remember your chemistry, the difference between the two forms is that the tocotrienols have three unsaturated bonds. This results in a different sort of biological activity, as we will now explain.
Lets take the question of cholesterol.
Regular vitamin E does not really have much direct effect on cholesterol levels. But tocotrienols have a very marked ability to lower cholesterol. This effect has been demonstrated in many studies, both on animals and in humans. One of the things that is interesting about tocotrienols is that they lower cholesterol by a different mechanism than do the statin class of drugs. But tocotrienol actually increases the rate of breakdown of HMG CoA Reductase, resulting in a decrease in cholesterol synthesis.