Of the 13 vitamin E products recently tested by ConsumerLab.com, White Plains, NY, 10 met quality standards and FDA labeling requirements.

While most supplements contain what they claim, according to recent tests, two vitamin E oil products provided synthetic vitamin E when their labels suggested that they were natural. One of these was also short on the total amount of vitamin E promised.

ConsumerLab.com’s tests also showed that a vitamin E tablet failed to properly break apart, taking 128 minutes to disintegrate in solution rather than 30 minutes or less as required by the U.S. Pharmacopoeia (USP). Such a delay means a pill may not release its ingredients properly for absorption. Products that don’t disintegrate properly tend to result from poor manufacturing although, as in this case, they may actually contain the claimed ingredient, ConsumeLab.com concluded.

“If you want natural vitamin E, which is safer than synthetic vitamin E when taking high doses, at a minimum look for a product that lists ‘d-alpha tocopherol’ (or ‘d-alpha tocopheryl’) in the ingredient area, not just the word ‘natural’,” said Tod Cooperman, MD, ConsumerLab.com president.

The report additionally lists 11 products that recently passed the same testing in ConsumerLab.com’s Voluntary Certification Program and three products similar to those that passed testing.

Vitamin E supplements accounted for $391 million in sales in the U.S. in 2007, according to Nutrition Business Journal, Boulder, CO. Sales had been as high as $870 million in 1999, but fell due to studies that failed to show a beneficial effect on heart disease and certain types of cancer. Vitamin E remains popular, however, because it prevents deficiency in people with conditions that cause malabsorption, and it may be useful in other conditions including PMS and menstrual pain, low sperm count, restless leg syndrome, acute anterior uveitis (inflammation of eye tissues), Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and rheumatoid arthritis. Applied to the skin, vitamin E is used for a variety of purposes and may be of some help in preventing and treating sunburn.