On Beyond E: The Story Behind Tocotrienols
by Mark Timon, M.S. Clin. Nut.

"Tocotrienols" is a new word to many. It sounds much like the more familiar "tocopherols." Indeed, tocotrienols are close cousins to tocopherols, (vitamin E), and bring us powerful benefits that go on beyond E.

For example, you may recall the recent pronouncements that spread across the airwaves about the drug Tamoxifen. They dealt with Tamoxifen's alleged ability to reduce risk of breast cancer by 47% if taken in a prophylactic manner. Of course, the downside - there is often at least one with most synthetic drugs - was that Tamoxifen, at the same time, increased the risk of uterine cancer. It would appear Tamoxifen actually gives women the choice of which body part they would later prefer to submit to surgery.

Tocotrienols, on the other hand, have anticancer activity too but without any side effects. All tocotrienols directly inhibit growth of human breast cancer cells, with gamma- and delta being most inhibitory. They have, in fact, been shown to inhibit proliferation of human breast cancer cells by 50%, beating Tamoxifen at its own game. This feature of tocotrienols goes on beyond E, for alpha-tocopherol demonstrated no similar effect.

Tocotrienols, like vitamin E, are widely distributed in the plant kingdom. They are found along with vitamin E, that is, with the tocopherols, in grains such as barley, soybeans, rice, amaranth and fruits of palm. From the purely chemical point of view, tocotrienols differ from tocopherols in their molecular structure only by having an unsaturated isoprenoid side chain. In fact, this side chain in tocotrienols has three double bonds.

Tocopherols also have an isoprenoid side chain, but it is saturated, lacking double bonds. Let's hope this is the most boring part of our discussion. Yet it was important to explain the seemingly tiny difference in side chain chemistry because that small difference between tocopherols and tocotrienols is believed to account for some rather large and significant attributes of tocotrienols. Those attributes are either lacking in vitamin E or present in E to a lesser degree. There are, by-the-way, alpha, beta, gamma, and delta tocotrienols just as there are alpha, beta, gamma, and delta tocopherols. Research data on tocotrienols shows them to benefit several key parameters of health.

Research

1. Nesaretnam, K., et. al., Tocotrienols inhibit the growth of human breast cancer cells irrespective of estrogen receptor status, Lipids, 33(5):461-469, May, 1998.

2. Guthrie, N. et. al., Inhibition of proliferation of estrogen receptor-negative MDA-MB-435 and positive MCF-7 human breast cancer cells by palm oil tocotrienols and tamoxifen alone and in combination., J, Nutr., 127(3):544S-548S, March, 1997.

3. Nesaretnam, K., Guthrie, N., et. al., Effect of tocotrienols on the growth of a human breast cancer line in culture., Lipids, 30(12):1139-43, December 1995.

4. Nesaretnam, K., op. cit.

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