Tocopherol on the Tocopherol Levels of Adipose Tissue and Plasma

S EVERAL investigators have shown that the tocopherol requirements in animals and birds are increased when their diets contain large aIflOunts of unsaturated fats. ’ The same phenonienon might be expected to occur in man in which case greater attention than heretofore should be accorded to tocopherol intakes, particularly if it should prove reasonable to con-tinue to advocate the ingestion of polyun-saturated fats. These studies were undertaken in order to determine the effect of supplementing ordinary hospital diets with liberal amounts of tocopherol on the levels of tocopherol in adipose tissue and plasma. METHOD Nineteen hospitalized male patients, aged thirty to eighty-one, were maintained on mixed diets of varying composition. Table includes the medical diagnoses. Plasma and subcutaneous adipose tissue samples were obtained before and two weeks after each patient took 1 gm. of tocopherol daily. Epro-linv (Eli Lilly and Co.) is available as capsules each containing Go mg. d-alpha-tocopherol plus varying amount of beta, gamma and delta tocopherols to a total of 100 mg. Patients received 5 capsules, twice daily. Plasma samples were analyzed according to the method used by Leitner et al.,2 modified as follows