European researchers have found that people with rheumatoid arthritis who take 800 IU a day of vitamin E report less pain than those who go without it. Playground Supervisor Vitamin E apparently has only one major role in the body, but that one is a whopper. Vitamin E is found throughout our bodies in the tissues that contain fat, including the protective membranes surrounding cells and their nuclei, which contain the genetic material. This all-important vitamin is also found in the fatty sheaths that wrap around and insulate nerves and in molecules called lipoproteins, which circulate in our blood. These reactions, called oxidation-reduction reactions, go on all the time.
Problems occur, though, when a chemical reaction generates a free radical.
Because the imbalance makes it hungry for an electron, it steals one from some other molecule. A Chain Reaction Unfortunately, that means that another molecule is short an electron, so it becomes a free radical that in turn strives to pluck an electron from some other unlucky molecule nearby. The effect is a chain reaction of free radical damage, kind of like a game of tag that s gotten out of control. This innocent game leads to trouble. Cell membranes are damaged, sometimes beyond repair.