Vitamin E is a fat soluble vitamin which can be found in many foods. It is especially prevalent in certain fats and oils. It acts as a powerful antioxidant (nutrients that block the harmful effects of toxic by-products of bodily functions). The richest source of vitamin E is wheat-germ. It is also found in significant amounts in liver, eggs, nuts (almond, hazelnuts, walnuts), sunflower seeds, corn oil, mayonnaise, vegetable oils, dark green leafy vegetables, sweet potatoes and yams.

Vitamin E plays a major role in reducing inflammation as well as cleansing the body of free radicals. Ishwarlal Jialal and Sridevi Devaraj of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Texas studied 47 men and women with adult-onset, or type II, diabetes and 25 healthy volunteers. The researchers sampled people's blood before and after each received 1,200 international units of vitamin E daily for 3 months. The vitamin E cut production of a cytokine, an immune system signaling molecule. In test-tube experiments, white blood cells were stimulated to provoke an immune response. Cells from volunteers after treatment responded by producing about one-third as much interleukin-6--a cytokine that tells the liver to make CRP--as was generated by cells from blood drawn before people took vitamin E.

Before treatment, the 23 people with major diabetes complications such as kidney failure produced roughly twice as much C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of inflammation, as the healthy group did. Concentrations of CRP were about 33 percent higher in blood from the 24 people with mild diabetes than in the healthy volunteers.

Vitamin E supplements lowered CRP concentrations dramatically in all three groups. CRP measurements in people with mild disease fell to the healthy group's starting concentration, and those in people with advanced diabetes fell to the concentrations detected in the other diabetic people before treatment

(Jialal I, Devaraj S. Effect of vitamin E on acute chronic inflammation in Type 2 Diabetes Patients: FREE RADICAL BIOLOGY & MEDICINE Oct. 2000).

(Upritchard JE, Sutherland WHF, Mann JI. Effect of supplementation with tomato juice, vitamin E, and vitamin C on LDL oxidation and products of inflammatory activity in type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care, 2000, 23:733-738).

Dosages of vitamin E are usually listed in international units (IU). Vitamin E supplements are available in soft gel, tablet, capsule and topical oil forms. The recommended dosage is 200-400 IU daily.