(RxWiki News) Most Americans do not get enough Vitamin E from their diet alone. Taking a daily supplement may be the answer.
Vitamin E is found in foods we eat and is used by the body as an antioxidant, a form of damage prevention for our cells.
Recently researchers have found a new benefit of vitamin E. The protective vitamin has been shown to improve the most severe form of fatty liver disease in children.
"People of all ages should take Vitamin E."
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded the Treatment of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Children (TONIC) to study the effects vitamin E or metformin would have on fatty liver disease in children, most commonly nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).
Most children that have fatty liver disease are often overweight and losing weight would reverse the disease. Hispanics suffer more from the disease in comparison with African-Americans and white children. Also, boys are more often affected than girls.
Liver biopsies were used to evaluate improvement of liver disease. The results indicated vitamin E was able to improve or resolve at least half the cases.
Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) is a liver enzyme that was measured to detect success of treatments. Vitamin E and metformin were not better at reducing ALT levels than placebos, but vitamin E was able to improve ALT levels more rapidly within six months than the placebo.
The Study
- National Institutes of Health funded the Treatment of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (TONIC) trial
- Researchers studied the effects of Vitamin E or metformin on fatty liver disease by measuring liver enzyme ALT and performing liver biopsies
- There were 173 white and Hispanic children participants aged 8-17
- Children were randomly distributed in three groups: one group received 500mg of metformin, one group received 400 international units of vitamin E, last group received a placebo twice per day
- ALT levels improved with children that were on vitamin E within the first six months in comparison to placebo group
- 58 percent of children taking vitamin E no longer had NASH
- All children received frequent advice on diet and exercise throughout the study
