Comment · Sun, April 24, 2022 · ND Owner
The new optimized Vitamin E
Original post in this thread
callitblues · 26 points
Start off with the fact that I appreciate ND a lot. I've been a customer for years and follow closely for anything new.
But I couldn't understand the point this time.
If actually aiming for an optimized d-alpha tocopherol supplement, one probably expects the formulation of something like D-alpha-tocopheryl polyethylene glycol succinate (TPGS) - this is a derivative that seems like a very stable water-soluble version that also acts as an absorption enhancer by itself (similar to piperine). In a glance, just a truly superior version, as far as alpha-tocopherol can go.
...that's how I normally view ND. Always in advance to a degree. So creating an optimized Vitamin E as straight up d-alpha-tocopheryl succinate just seems a little bit odd now.
For a split second I had to hypothesize the actual reason for this release is just an excess of Vitamin E supply you had from the OmegaTAU. I wasn't sure it is as optimized as I wanted to guess: the dose is low (unexpectedly my multivitamin appeared to contain 2x the dosage in the same form) and from my quick research the human evidence for superior pharmacokinetics isn't much there as well.
From my point of view, there is so much more…
What they were answering
Direct reply to the original post — see the thread post above.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
We've always said we would be releasing all ingredients used in Natrium stacks as standalones, so people could form their own stacks and mess around if they wanted to. It's not an excess of raw material that we just wanted to get rid of. It's literally what we told everyone we would do from day one.
If actually aiming for an optimized d-alpha tocopherol supplement, one probably expects the formulation of something like D-alpha-tocopheryl polyethylene glycol succinate (TPGS) - this is a derivative that seems like a very stable water-soluble version that also acts as an absorption enhancer by itself (similar to piperine). In a glance, just a truly superior version, as far as alpha-tocopherol can go.
That's a PEG ester of the succinate salt. It seems interesting, but like it or not, many people freak out over polyethylene glycol. The normal succinate salt has good data behind it.
https://academic.oup.com/carcin/article/27/11/2308/2391446?login=false
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12166531/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0300483X9190154S
https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/01635581.2014.863367
We have also been finding interesting effects with succinate salts of many different things. Succinic acid itself has its own unique effects, which we have used to our advantage in our Alcohol Defense.
From my point of view, there is so much more to an optimized Vitamin E product. What about tocotrienols? there aren't much reliable tocotrienol-containing products. The rest of the tocopherols? there's some strong controversy in regard to the consumption of d-alpha tocopherol as a standalone; Is that really optimal?
The issue is that none of those other ones are vitamin E, per the FDA and NIH.
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminE-HealthProfessional/
Naturally occurring vitamin E exists in eight chemical forms (alpha-, beta-, gamma-, and delta-tocopherol and alpha-, beta-, gamma-, and delta-tocotrienol) that have varying levels of biological activity [1]. Alpha- (or α-) tocopherol is the only form that is recognized to meet human requirements.
Serum concentrations of vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) depend on the liver, which takes up the nutrient after the various forms are absorbed from the small intestine. The liver preferentially resecretes only alpha-tocopherol via the hepatic alpha-tocopherol transfer protein [1]; the liver metabolizes and excretes the other vitamin E forms [2]. As a result, blood and cellular concentrations of other forms of vitamin E are lower than those of alpha-tocopherol and have been the subjects of less research [3,4].
So I am not opposed to doing a different product with mixed tocopherols and tocotrienols. However, we can't call it vitamin E. The only one that meets human requirements and can be called vitamin E is α-tocopherol. You are correct in saying there is strong controversy online about this all. However, the science is still not clear yet. Also, most of the vitamin E products out there are dosing way too high in our opinion, based on the data we have seen for excess mortality increases at certain doses. We wanted to bring one out at a reasonable dose to give people that option. It's not some revolutionary thing we think we released. It's just a good form of d-α-tocopherol dosed at the level we feel is effective and safe.