Infants discriminate between natural and synthetic vitamin E
2003
Stone, W.L. | LeClair, I. | Ponder, T. | Baggs, G. | Reis, B.B.
Background: In adults, α-tocopheryl acetate (natural vitaminE) has approximately twice the biological activity of all-rac-α-tocopherol (synthetic vitamin E). Similar studies have not been done in term infants. Objective: We evaluated the vitamin E and antioxidant status of term infants fed formulas differing in the amount and form of vitamin E acetate. Design: A controlled, blinded, multisite study was completed with 77 term infants randomly assigned to 1 of 3 different infant-formula groups. The HIGHNAT-E formula (n = 26) contained 20 IU RRR-α-tocopheryl acetate/L (14.5 mg/L), the LOWNAT-E formula (n = 25) contained 10 IU RRR-α-tocopheryl acetate/L (7.3 mg/L), and the SYN-E formula (n = 26) contained 13.5 IU synthetic all-rac-α-tocopheryl acetate/L (13.5 mg/L). A human milk¡fed group (n = 29) served as a reference. Results: Although the LOWNAT-E formula contained only one-half the concentration of α-tocopherol that the SYN-E formula did (7.3 compared with 13.5 mg/L), the infants fed the LOWNAT-E formula had plasma α-tocopherol concentrations that were not significantly different from those of the infants fed the SYN-E formula. However, α-tocopherol intakes in the study population, when expressed as mg 2R-tocopherol isomers consumed/d, correlated with plasma α-tocopherol (r = 0.20, P = 0.02) and the ratio of plasma α-tocopherol to lipids (r = 0.19, P = 0.03). There were no significant differences in antioxidant status between the 3 groups, but the LOWNAT-E group showed a trend toward lower plasma isoprostanes. Conclusions: This study supports the new definition for vitaminE given in the 2000 Dietary Reference Intakes and suggests that infants discriminate between RRR-α-tocopheryl acetate and all-rac-α-tocopheryl acetate. All 3 infant formulas supported adequate vitamin E status.
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