American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 63, 722-728, Copyright © 1996 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc

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Long-term oral vitamin E supplementation in cystic fibrosis patients: RRR-alpha-tocopherol compared with all-rac-alpha-tocopheryl acetate preparations

BM Winklhofer-Roob, MA van't Hof and DH Shmerling
Division of Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics, University of Zurich, Switzerland.

To investigate the efficacy of three different vitamin E preparations for optimizing vitamin E status in cystic fibrosis (CF patients long- term, 29 patients (aged 0.7-29.8 y) were randomly assigned to receive 400 IU of either RRR-alpha-tocopherol (A: 268 mg, n = 10) or all rac- alpha-tocopheryl acetate as a fat-soluble (B: 400 mg, n = 10) or water- miscible preparation (C: 400 mg, n = 9) and were followed for 6 wk. In the whole study group, plasma alpha-tocopherol concentrations increased from baseline (10.5 +/- 4.6 micromol/L) to 3 wk (25.7 +/- 6.5 micromol/L; P < 0.001), but not further between 3 and 6 wk; concentrations at 3 and 6 wk did not differ from those of age-matched control subjects (23.6 +/- 3.9 micromol/L). There was no significant difference in the increase from baseline to 6 wk among preparations A (17.75 +/- 8.43 micromol/L), B (14.0 +/- 9.4 micromol/L), and C (15.5 +/- 7.1 micromol/L). Because of differences in body weight, the dose administered ranged from 5.5 to 47.4 IU x kg-1 x d-1; it correlated positively with the increase in plasma alpha-tocopherol concentrations (P < 0.001). There was no significant difference in the increase in plasma alpha-tocopherol concentrations between patients with CF- associated liver disease (n = 8) who received 10.2 +/- 3.8 IU x kg-1 x d-1 and those without liver disease taking comparable doses. We conclude that CF patients can be efficiently supplemented with 400 IU/d of any one of the three vitamin E preparations and plasma values of healthy control subjects can be achieved.

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