Certain Vitamin E-Rich Oils Improve Lung Capacity
A new study finds that vitamin E-rich oils such as canola, soybean and corn oil could be contributing to lung inflammation, airway hyper-responsiveness and possibly asthma, while other vitamin E-rich oils—olive, wheat germ, almond, and sunflower oil—can actually improve lung capacity and function.
According to researchers from Northwestern University, the findings further the understanding of the health advantages and disadvantages of two of the four tocopherol forms of vitamin E—gamma-tocopherol and alpha-tocoperhol.
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The study authors analyzed the dataset from Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study (CARDIA), a population-based observational study sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, which involved 5,115 participants ranging between the ages of 18 and 30, and recruited between the years 1985 and 1986.
Among the individuals who took part in the CARDIA study, data was excluded for those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), and without data for tocopherol levels, spirometry, body mass index, height or smoking. This left 4,526 people. The authors analyzed spirometry data to measure lung function and capacity in years, 0, 2, 5, 10, and 20; and tocopherol type levels present in the participants’ blood in years 0, 7, and 15. High gamma-tocopherol levels were associated with a 10 percent-to-17 percent reduction in lung function, while higher concentrations of gamma-tocopherol in the blood plasma indicated a 10 percent-to-17 percent reduction in lung function.
“There are several forms of vitamin E,” with the alpha-tocopherol and gamma-tocopherol being the most abundant forms, says Joan Cook-Mills, PhD, associate professor in the allergy and immunology division at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and corresponding author of the study.
What the Northwestern study shows is that, “above 10 microlar plasma gamma-tocopherol, there was an association with lower lung spirometry,” she says.
In contrast, increased concentrations of plasma alpha-tocopherol were associated with better lung function, continues Cook-Mills.
“The sources of the tocopherols are supplements and dietary oils. Soybean oil, canola oil, and corn oil are sources of high amounts of gamma-tocophero,” she says. “In contrast, olive oil, sunflower oil, and safflower oil contain alpha-tocopherol with little to no gamma-tocopherol. Therefore, the dietary oil and supplements affect the plasma concentrations of the forms of tocopherols.”
—Mark McGraw
Reference
Marchese M, Kumar R, et al. The vitamin E isoforms a-tocopherol and y-tocopherol have opposite associations with spirometric parameters: the CARDIA study. Respiratory Research. 2014.