Perspective on Vitamin E

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Abstract
Although vitamin E was discovered over forty years ago and numerous animal experiments have revealed a broad variety of deficiency symptoms, only recently have overt signs of deficiency been recognized in man. The incidence of such signs in man appears relatively low, but they are sufficiently numerous and varied to establish a positive correlation between vitamin E deficiency in man and that in other animals and to serve as a sound basis for extending the comparison to the less obvious symptoms and conditions which might characterize a marginal deficiency. Faced with the knowledge that man requires vitamin E, that the vitamin E content of many foodstuffs is low, that a number of observations suggest an incidence of suboptimal nutrition of vitamin E and that several presumably normal populations have shown signs of vitamin E deficiency, it is evident that every reasonable step should be taken to assure the normal requirement to healthy persons and a generous amount to the ill, especially to those in whom the supply or absorption may be interrupted.