# Talk:Vitamin E

I had nominated this for GA review in March 2018, then withdrew the nomination in June 2018, as no reviewer had taken up the task. I intend to renominate it after Thiamine goes through the GA process. If that succeeds, it will be the 11th vitamin I've raised to GA, leaving only E and D. David notMD (talk) 17:19, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

And I meant to add, all improvements to the article are welcome. David notMD (talk) 00:22, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

@David notMD I have come across this source [1] I think it is high-quality and would belong on the article. I have not got full access to the source but there is also a press release about its findings [2]. The review concluded "The USPSTF also concludes with moderate certainty that there is no net benefit of supplementation with vitamin E for the prevention of cardiovascular disease or cancer." Do you think we should mention this in the "Cancer health claims" section? Psychologist Guy (talk) 13:15, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Psychologist Guy I agree. It's a review of a huge amount of lit by an authorative group in a high quality journal. Go ahead and add it, or if too much trouble, I'm willing to do it.  P.S. Not relevant to the topic, but father and one brother psychologists, another brother and two sisters-in-law MSW therapists in private practice. My spouse arts therapist. Our daughter a coach for artists with ADHD. David notMD (talk) 14:30, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
Hi thanks for the response, I would appreciate if you could add it in as you would be better at summarizing the source than me. Looks like your family is well qualified. My dad is a psychologist as was my grandfather, I did study it but dropped out to everyone's disappointment. Psychologist Guy (talk) 18:04, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
text with ref for PMID 35727271 added to cancer and cardio subsections in Research. David notMD (talk) 21:14, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Checking for newer refs for the Research section David notMD (talk) 14:22, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Nominated. Now (waiting for a reviewer) is a good time to improve the article. David notMD (talk) 00:59, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

The following statement in this article:
There is use of vitamin E in skincare and wound-treatment products, but no clinical evidence that it is effective.

Uses reference 10 as support.  
Reference 10 merely examined the question of the whether or not the topical use of Vitamin E during wound healing improves the cosmetic appearance of scarring after healing.  There is no mention of any other potential benefits such as healing rate, inflammation reduction, or reduced infection rates.  
There may still be no clinical evidence of any benefit from topical application of vitamin E.  But, this reference is not sufficient support to come to that conclusion. Seanmcd27 (talk) 00:36, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

The section Sources lists foods and their mg of vitamin E/100g of the food. But it lists "Canola/rapeseed oil" as 44 and "Canola oil" as 17.5. Clicking on the hyperlinks – canola, rapeseed, and canola oil – takes one to these pages: Rapeseed oil, Rapeseed, and Rapeseed oil again. The Rapeseed oil page quotes the 17.5 figure – but not as the α-tocopherol content, simply as vitamin E content – and cites fdc.nal.usda.gov. The Rapeseed one doesn’t list contents.
The section says “The last major revision was Release 28, September 2015.”. The USDA website says that release 28 is not going to be updated, and that this data is to be found via the Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS). (So instead of typing in the food and seeing the values for it, one has to download a 6Mb spreadsheet and search in it!)
Going to the cited site, fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/748278/nutrients, one can read that canola oil’s vitamin E content is made up of four of the eight vitamin E compounds, and it gives these averages, again in mg/100g: α-tocopherol, 17.3 ... γ-tocopherol, 41.3 ... δ-tocopherol, 1.48 ... and β-tocotrienol, 8.07.
And going to the FNDDS site, it confirms the 17.3 figure, but not the other three, which it doesn’t mention.
So why is α-tocopherol used as a proxy for vitamin E content? Why the 44 figure for "Canola/rapeseed oil"? And why this 17.5 figure, and not 17.3? It appears that there could be a mistake somewhere along the line, or at least, a bit of confused explanation. If there isn’t, a sentence of explanation would help, I.M.O. Nick Barnett (talk) 14:57, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

A key concern with vitamin E is its relationship with readily oxidized linoleic acid.  This fatty acid is unstable but associated with vitamin E.  Hence, linoleic in the diet confounds research based on 'independent' changes in vitamin E doses or those that achieve vitamin E through the diet via ingestion of vegetables.  Further, oxidation of linoleic acid is likely to manifest in chronic diseases that may take a decade or so to arise.  Few studies have been designed with these mechanisms in mind.  Another confounder is the intake of vitamin C, which provides 'recharging' of vitamin E that has neutralized an ROS.  Finally, with its brain and muscles, the human body represents a substantively more oxidizing condition than that found in plants, and it is reasonable to entertain the idea that the humans need more vitamin E relative to plants. Drmartz (talk) 20:16, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

All of that is your personal opinion, not supported by any medical reviews that we can cite on Wikipedia. Your comments about linoleic acid and manifestation of chronic diseases is a typical conspiracy theory talking point promoted by carnivore diet and low-carb diet influencers, it isn't supported by any good medical evidence. We have an article on Linoleic acid (LA) which notes consumption of LA is associated with a lowered risk of CVD. This review looked at tissue levels of of linoleic acid on over 68k people for 31.9 years, the results found that higher levels of LA were significantly associated with lower risks of total CVD, cardiovascular mortality, and ischemic stroke [3]. So your comments are not correct. Psychologist Guy (talk) 21:03, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
This is quite interesting because I do not have a personal opinion about 'all of that.'  I am citing verifiable facts, not assembling them, as far as I know.  The molecule called cardiolipin is known to be less stable when constituted with linoleic acid versus DHA.  Certainly, the science behind DHA is well known.  These same conditions apply when cell membranes need to be populated with a higher frequency of DHA versus linoleic acid as is a well known condition in neurons.  Vitamin E is a critical anti-oxidant for linoleic acid.  This is also well known, and since it is packaged with omega-6 fatty acids when it arrives in whole foods, how could it not represent a confounder?  If you check with any of the GPT models, they will confirm the particulars.  I wasn't intending to sound like the whole picture was clear, merely that these are reasons why studies of the effect of vitamin E tend to be inconclusive or contradictory.  I am a bit confused by your reference to medical evidence.  Most of my comment was about known metabolic pathways and can be confirmed on Wikipedia, so it is biological, not medical.  Does basic biology not count? 2603:8000:683E:4000:B069:6F36:B9E6:EBDA (talk) 23:39, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Sorry but nobody cares about your personal opinions, nor mine. We need WP:RS. You are using this talk-page as a forum. If you have no references to cite and improve this article you are just wasting your own and other editors time here. We only go with what reliable sources say on this topic and yes most of these will be from medical reviews or textbooks. If you believe studies on the effect of Vitamin E are inconclusive that is your opinion, we can't cite that. As stated we need good sources. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:51, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Hoping to cool the temperature here. In response to "Does basic biology not count?" Every article needs references. If there is a relevant Wikipedia article, a Wikilink can be made to it, but if there is referenced content in that article it should be copied - along with refs - into the vitamin E article. A statement along the lines of "oxidation of linoleic acid is likely to manifest in chronic diseases that may take a decade or so to arise" must have WP:MEDRS references in support. Same for "it is reasonable to entertain the idea that the humans need more vitamin E relative to plants." David notMD (talk) 00:02, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Vitamin E#Declining supplement use stops over a decade ago, leaving the reader on a cliffhanger. does anyone have the updated info for this, please? 173.222.1.148 (talk) 20:50, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

I tried several search methods and could not come up with newer data. David notMD (talk) 02:39, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
Although prescriptions are not indicative of total consumption of a vitamin widely available as a non-prescription dietary supplement, analysis shows that prescriptions for vitamin E are small compared to Vitamin D and folic acid. The vitamin E history of prescriptions does not go back further than 2013, so it does not show what was likely a decrease from circa 2003 to 2013. See https://clincalc.com/DrugStats/TC/Vitamins David notMD (talk) 13:21, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Prior to renominating this article for GA, a Pubmed search limited to meta-analyses and systematic reviews yielded recent articles that I am incorporating into the article. For exercise recovery there were two journal articles with conflicting results. PMID 38346687 reported no post-exercise recovery benefits. PMID 35458161 reported some benefits, but these were detected via subset analysis for trained athletes over non-trained, and for lower dose supplementation over higher dose. The latter article was published in Nutrients, which is published by MDPI, which has been criticized as a "predatory journal publisher." I chose to not include the second ref in the addition to the article. David notMD (talk) 13:36, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
Also beginning to address the comments  from the abandoned GA review. This will continue into October, with an intention to then resubmit to GA. David notMD (talk) 09:29, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Nominated for GA review 10/10/2024. I had initiated a GA review in Dec 2022 but then abandoned the process after the reviewer proposed changes. I have recently been addressing those comments and intend to finish before a new review starts. David notMD (talk) 21:14, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

The 2022 comments included a request that overly detailed descriptions of the reviews and meta-analyses cited in the Medical Applications section be cut while retaining the references. David notMD (talk) 19:46, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
Glad to see this is back at GA. Best of luck!!! 🏵️Etrius ( Us) 19:44, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I saw this page in the GAN list and had to take a look for such a big topic. 
It is my opinion that this page far exceeds the GA criteria now, and that minutiae such as discussing specific compounds in detail, are not necessary for GA status. When this inevitably comes up for FA review, that may change, but I feel it is time to award GA. Just-a-can-of-beans (talk) 18:56, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate your opinion about the quality of the article. The review process has identified weak references, oversights, unneeded digressions, etc. It has been a long-term (2016 onward) goal of mine to raise all of the vitamin articles to GA status. Vitamin E will be the 12th, leaving only vitamin D. As to whether these have achieved quasi-FA quality, probably not. Earlier this year I proposed vitamin C for FA, having completed GA in 2017, and was declined after scores and scores of edits and back-and-forth with the group of FA reviewers. I have not yet decided whether to return to C or start in on D. Either will be a long, hard task. David notMD (talk) 21:06, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
Well, thank you for doing so, even if FA status was ultimately rejected. It is an important thing - although they of course should not do so, many government agencies, programs, and even academic institutions will use pages like that in ways that will concretely impact the life and health of their populace. I hope you know that even without a shiny badge, people appreciate your work in improving topics like these which are so important and impactful that many of us fear to so much as touch them. Just-a-can-of-beans (talk) 21:22, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Ready to start (just back from travels). David notMD (talk) 03:42, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi! I found this blog article that explains how Vitamin E is used in facial oils to help reduce chemical irritation and support skin hydration:
https://zero1bio.co.uk/blogs/skin-care/your-skin-will-thank-you-swap-harsh-chemicals-for-nourishing-oils-and-vitamin-e
Might be a useful resource when expanding the skincare applications section. SaraAdam99 (talk) 17:36, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

Not useful, not reliable. Use WP:MEDRS reviews. Zefr (talk) 19:16, 20 June 2025 (UTC)