The New Avatar of Vitamin E: Tocotrienols

 

 

• Vitamin E is a fat-soluble vitamin necessary for animal growth and development. It is important for the establishment and maintenance of reproductive, nervous, immune and metabolic functions. In 1922, foreign experts Evans and Bishop discovered an essential "fertility factor" when studying the reproductive ability of mice. Later, the factor was named vitamin E, also known as tocopherol. Most plants in nature contain vitamin E. For example, it is not lacking in fruits, vegetables and other foods we eat every day, especially in vegetable oils.

 

 

As an essential nutrient for the human body, vitamin E has been widely used in food, medicine, cosmetics and other fields. In the food industry, it has been included in the category of nutritional enhancers and food additives. From the perspective of molecular structure, vitamin E is a multi-configuration aggregate, a general term for a class of phenolic compounds with similar chemical structures, mainly divided into four types of tocopherols: α, β, γ, and δ, and the corresponding tocotrienols.

Specifically, α-tocopherol is the most widely distributed in plants, and its activity is relatively ideal in research. Its activity is 2, 10 and 33 times that of β, γ and δ respectively. It is usually used as the core indicator of vitamin E and is also the most widely used type of tocopherol. GB1886.233 Vitamin E stipulates that vitamin E includes d-α-tocopherol, dl-α-tocopherol, d-α-tocopheryl acetate, dl-α-tocopheryl acetate, d-α-tocopheryl succinate, dl-α-tocopheryl succinate, d-α-tocopheryl acetate concentrate, and mixed tocopherol concentrate, among which mixed tocopherols contain more configurations of tocopherols, as shown in the figure below:

 

Natural sources are gaining more attention

 

Currently, vitamin E on the market is divided into natural and synthetic products, most of which are synthetic vitamin E, because synthetic products are high in purity, low in price, easy to accurately control the dosage, and more in line with production requirements as food additives. As a nutritional enhancer or functional food raw material, the application of vitamin E is changing, and natural d-α-tocopherol and mixed tocopherol concentrates are more popular. These are also the two main natural sources of vitamin E on the market. They not only have natural properties, but also have more outstanding physiological activity. The signature ingredient activity 1mg dl-α-tocopherol = 0.74 mg d-α-tocopherol.

Data released by Nielsen once showed that more than half of Chinese consumers prefer natural, organic, high-quality products. As consumers' pursuit of high quality continues to improve, ingredients of natural origin are more likely to capture the hearts of consumers. Studies have shown that vitamin E containing four types of α, β, γ, and δ performs better than α-tocopherol alone in animal functional tests. And recent studies have found that tocotrienols have better functions than α-tocopherol in some cases, such as anti-oxidation and cholesterol-lowering properties. Therefore, the proportion of mixed tocopherols containing multifunctional components in new products is also increasing.

Tocotrienols are the new star

 

Tocotrienols were discovered nearly 40 years later than tocopherols, and were not discovered until 1960. At this time, the development of tocopherols was in full swing, and all sectors of society paid less attention to tocotrienols. Moreover, the distribution of tocotrienols is relatively limited. It is only found in a few oil products such as wheat germ oil, rice bran oil, corn oil, soybean oil and palm oil. Among them, the concentration of tocotrienols in rice bran oil and soybean oil is The content reaches more than 900mg/kg.

Studies have pointed out that because tocotrienol contains unsaturated side chains, it can more effectively penetrate into tissues containing saturated fatty acid layers, and can also be better distributed in the lipid layer of cell membranes, thus playing a good role in antioxidant and Free radical scavenging function. It also has significant advantages in inhibiting cholesterol, supporting joints and cardiovascular health problems, and is a potential functional raw material in the food, pharmaceutical and other industries.

 

According to the current research situation, in addition to the antioxidant effect of vitamin E, the potential applications of tocotrienols mainly focus on the following aspects:

Lower cholesterol.

Modern medicine shows that excessive cholesterol is one of the pathogenic factors of cardiovascular disease, especially high levels of low-density lipoprotein is an important pathogenic factor and the main carrier of cholesterol to extrahepatic tissues. In human liver experiments, tocotrienol inhibits the activity of HMG-CoA reductase (hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase) in the liver that catalyzes cholesterol biosynthesis through post-transcriptional regulation mechanisms, thereby effectively reducing serum LDL-cholesterol and total cholesterol levels, and the synthesis of total cholesterol is reduced by 32%. Tocopherol does not have the activity of inhibiting enzymes.

Promotes neural development.

An experiment using gene chip technology to study the effect of vitamin E on fetal brain development in rats showed that the level of α-tocopherol in the fetal brain was about half of that in the mother, while in the group with added tocotrienol, the level of α-tocotrienol in the fetal brain was significantly higher than that in the mother, indicating that tocotrienol is more likely to break through the blood-brain barrier. In addition, α-tocotrienol can also inhibit the signal transduction reaction induced by glutamate that causes neurodegeneration in the body, which is a function that tocopherol does not have.

Promote joint health.

Generally speaking, vitamin D is closely related to bones and joints, and recent studies have shown that vitamin E also plays an important role in bone health. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial published in the journal Nutrition followed up 87 postmenopausal women (average age 60) with below-average bone density for 12 weeks. The results showed that tocotrienol supplementation increased bone turnover and was a safe and effective new option for bone health.

 

Powder form is better?

 

With day and night hard working of our outstanding and erudite researchers, New Element Biotech now launch the new generation of natural vitamin E to the market: Tocotrienols 30% powder. It has excellent performance and stable quality, and will definitely bring a new revolution to the food and supplement products market!

Witness this.

 

Effective food additives

 

Humans and animals have formed a metabolic system that adapts to the environment during long-term evolution, and there is also specificity in the metabolism of tocopherol. Tocopherol binding protein has a high specificity for α-tocopherol, which makes α-tocopherol preferentially absorbed and utilized. Tocotrienols still need to be studied in the functional field. However, in in vitro experiments, its antioxidant capacity is 50 times that of tocopherol. Such excellent antioxidant properties can better assist food processing.

Vitamin E has been widely recognized as a food additive in the international community. The Codex Alimentarius Commission, the European Commission, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Australian and New Zealand Food Standards Agency, etc. all allow it to be used in food as an antioxidant. However, the use of tocotrienols as an independent substance is relatively rare.

At present, China has begun accepting applications for new food additives containing mixed tocotrienols. As a leading enterprise in the research and production of tocotrienols and tocotrienol powder, Shandong New Element Biotech hopes to establish cooperation with more brands to jointly explore a bright new future for vitamin E!.