for Teachers for Schools for Enterprise
for Teachers for Schools for Enterprise
Course Navigator
Vitamin K: Fat-Soluble Vitamin Deficiency & Toxicity SymptomsNext Lesson 

Vitamin E: Fat-Soluble Vitamin Deficiency & Toxicity Symptoms

Chapter 9 /  Lesson 11   Transcript
Try it risk-free for 30 days

An error occurred trying to load this video.

Try refreshing the page, or contact customer support.

Coming up next: Vitamin K: Fat-Soluble Vitamin Deficiency & Toxicity Symptoms

You're on a roll. Keep up the good work!

Take Quiz Watch Next Lesson
 Replay
Your next lesson will play in 10 seconds
  • 0:03 Vitamin E
  • 1:14 Deficiency
  • 3:43 Toxicity
  • 4:12 Lesson Summary
Add to Add to Add to

Want to watch this again later?

Log in or sign up to add this lesson to a Custom Course.

Login or Sign up

Timeline
Autoplay
Autoplay
Speed

Recommended Lessons and Courses for You

Lesson Transcript
Instructor: Rebecca Gillaspy

Dr. Gillaspy has taught health science at University of Phoenix and Ashford University and has a degree from Palmer College of Chiropractic.

Vitamin E is a fat-soluble vitamin that acts as an antioxidant. Vitamin E deficiency can cause cell membranes to break down and lead to hemolytic anemia. Learn why this is a problem for premature infants, and also learn about symptoms of toxicity, in this lesson.

Vitamin E

If any of the vitamins needed by your body qualified as a superhero, it would be vitamin E. I say this because vitamin E is an antioxidant that protects your cell membranes from harm. Vitamin E's villain would be free radicals, which are highly reactive molecules that are missing an electron. These villainous free radicals go berserk inside your body, madly searching for an extra electron to grab a hold of to make them feel more stable. As they bounce around on their search, they cause damage to everything they run into, resulting in damage to your cells.

Our superhero, vitamin E, is capable of donating electrons to the free radicals. This calms the free radicals down and stops their mad dash of destruction through your body. So, the more vitamin E superheroes you have in your body, the fewer free radical villains you have creating problems. Now, you might be thinking that you should pump your body full of vitamin E. Well, before we get too far ahead of ourselves let's learn a little more about vitamin E and what happens inside of you when there is too much or too little of this important vitamin.

Deficiency

Because vitamin E is needed to protect your cell membranes, a vitamin E deficiency causes cell membranes to break down. Let's take a look at just what this means for your health. If the cell membranes that break down are the ones that belong to your red blood cells, you could develop hemolytic anemia, which is a type of anemia characterized by the destruction of red blood cells.

This is an easy term to recall if you remember that the prefix 'hemo-' refers to blood and the ending '-lytic' refers to destruction. So hemolytic anemia is literally 'blood cell destruction.' We know that it's your red blood cells that carry oxygen around your body. If your red blood cells are destroyed, then you suffer from anemia, which means you do not have enough healthy red blood cells to transport oxygen.

Hemolytic anemia due to vitamin E deficiency is most common in premature infants. This is because the transfer of vitamin E from mom to fetus does not happen until the final few weeks of pregnancy. If the baby comes early and does not make it to full term, then it's likely that the child will be born before the vitamin can be transferred. Premature infants often receive special formulas to make up for the deficiency.

As for adults, vitamin E deficiency is rare. The vitamin can be obtained in your diet via natural food sources, such as nuts, seeds, and plant oils (like safflower oil and sunflower oil). There is also some vitamin E provided through leafy green vegetables, such as spinach and mustard greens. And, if you are not a nut or veggie fan, then you can find a number of breakfast cereals fortified with vitamin E.

To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account

Register to view this lesson

Are you a student or a teacher?

Unlock Your Education

See for yourself why 30 million people use Study.com

Become a Study.com member and start learning now.
Become a Member  Back
What teachers are saying about Study.com
Try it risk-free for 30 days
Description

Earning College Credit

Did you know… We have over 160 college courses that prepare you to earn credit by exam that is accepted by over 1,500 colleges and universities. You can test out of the first two years of college and save thousands off your degree. Anyone can earn credit-by-exam regardless of age or education level.

To learn more, visit our Earning Credit Page

Transferring credit to the school of your choice

Not sure what college you want to attend yet? Study.com has thousands of articles about every imaginable degree, area of study and career path that can help you find the school that's right for you.

Research Schools, Degrees & Careers

Get the unbiased info you need to find the right school.

Browse Articles By Category

Browse an area of study or degree level.

Recommended Articles
You are viewing lesson Lesson 11 in chapter 9 of the course:

 Back To Course

Nutrition 101: Science of Nutrition

16 chapters | 134 lessons | 14 flashcard sets

Ch 9. How Vitamins Support Nutrition
Ch 10. Anatomy of the Digestive...

Vitamin E: Fat-Soluble Vitamin Deficiency & Toxicity Symptoms Related Study Materials

Create an account to start this course today
Try it risk-free for 30 days!
Create An Account

Explore our library of over 75,000 lessons

Browse by subject
Support