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Infants discriminate between natural and synthetic vitamin E^1,2,3,4

¹ From the Department of Pediatrics, James H Quillen College of Medicine, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN (WLS, IL, and TP), and the Pediatric Nutrition Research & Development Department, Ross Products Division, Abbott Laboratories, Columbus, OH (GB and BBR).

Background: In adults, RRR--tocopheryl acetate (natural vitaminE) has approximately twice the biological activity of all-rac--tocopherol (synthetic vitaminE). Similar studies have not been done in term infants.

Objective: We evaluated the vitaminE and antioxidant status of term infants fed formulas differing in the amount and form of vitaminE 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--tocopheryl acetate/L (14.5 mg/L), the LOWNAT-E formula (n = 25) contained 10 IU RRR--tocopheryl acetate/L (7.3 mg/L), and the SYN-E formula (n = 26) contained 13.5 IU synthetic all-rac--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 -tocopherol that the SYN-E formula did (7.3 compared with 13.5 mg/L), the infants fed the LOWNAT-E formula had plasma -tocopherol concentrations that were not significantly different from those of the infants fed the SYN-E formula. However, -tocopherol intakes in the study population, when expressed as mg 2R-tocopherol isomers consumed/d, correlated with plasma -tocopherol (r = 0.20, P = 0.02) and the ratio of plasma -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--tocopheryl acetate and all-rac--tocopheryl acetate. All 3 infant formulas supported adequate vitaminE status.

Key Words: Infants • biological activity • RRR--tocopherol • all-rac--tocopherol • -tocopherol • plasma tocopherols • red blood cell tocopherols • 8-epi-prostaglandin F₂ isoprostanes