Quantitative Consideration of the Effect of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Content of the Diet Upon the Requirements for Vitamin E

Abstract

A convenient rating for the contribution to vitamin E nutriture by diets and individual foods is “E:PUFA”—the ratio of the amount of vitamin E (milligram of d-α-tocopherol) to the amount of polyunsaturated fat (grams of polyunsaturated fatty acid). The E:PUFA ratio of the average 1960 diet in the United States (averaged per capita amount of foods available for consumption) is 0.6. Published data on man and on animals indicate that this ratio is not much higher than that of diets inducing definite symptoms of vitamin E deficiency. Thus, diets with E:PUFA ratios above 0.6 are predicted generally to protect against vitamin E deficiency, but diets with ratios lower than 0.6 are expected to have a depleting effect.