People with depression appear to have lower levels of the vitamin E alpha-tocopherol circulating in their bloodstream, report researchers, who will investigate further whether vitamin E supplements can help their symptoms. Levels of vitamin E have been reported to be lower in patients suffering major depression but it was not known whether this is due to inadequate dietary intake or a result of depression. An Australian team measured plasma alpha-tocopherol levels in 49 adults with major depression, and also looked at usual dietary intake of vitamin E by investigating diet history in a subset of the group. This was designed to check whether these subjects had a lower dietary intake of the vitamin than healthy people. Diet analysis indicated that 89 per cent of subjects met or exceeded the recommended intake for vitamin E, and so dietary intake was unlikely to be responsible for the low alpha-tocopherol levels, write the researchers in this month’s European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (vol 59, pp304-306).
