If not, take a supplement. Take 200 to 400 IU of vitamin E supplements per day. You can't get that much from food unless you eat huge amounts of nuts, seeds, or vegetable oil, all high in fat. Not all members of our Editorial Board agree that E supplements are advisable. But the majority believe that such levels are safe and potentially beneficial.
Vitamin E is a complex group of related compounds.
All this uncertainty among the health-conscious public has arisen from press reports about new findings presented at the March meeting of the American Heart Association. Dr. James Dwyer of the University of Southern California and his colleagues measured the thickness of the wall of a major artery in the necks of 573 healthy middle-aged people at the beginning of the study and 18 months later, as well as questioning them about their vitamin C intake over the previous year. Those who took more than about 200 milligrams of C supplements daily experienced a greater rate of arterial thickening. Though Dr. Dwyer himself believes you should not take vitamin C supplements except on a physician's advice, he states that this new evidence is preliminary and merely suggestive. Whatever the press may have made of it, this study has not yet been published.