Tocopherol and tocotrienol levels of foods consumed in Hawaii

Because of the individual biological effects and the uncertain or missing information on levels of tocopherols (T) and tocotrienols (T3) in foods frequently consumed in Hawaii, 79 food items (50 in duplicate) were analyzed for alpha-, beta-, gamma-, and delta-tocopherol (alpha T, beta T, gamma T, and delta T) and alpha-, beta-, gamma-, and delta-tocotrienol (alpha T3, beta T3, gamma T3, and delta T3) in addition to alpha-tocopheryl acetate (alpha Tac). Foods from local markets were stored according to usual household habits, freeze-dried, homogenized, and extracted three times with hexane containing butylated hydroxytoluene as a preservative and tocol as an internal standard. A normal-phase high-pressure liquid chromatography system was applied with fluorescence and photodiode array detection that resulted in baseline separation of all eight analytes and the internal standard tocol (To). The sum of all E vitamer concentrations, or total E vitamers (TEV), in all foods analyzed ranged an average from 0.6 to 828 mg/kg (T <= 542 mg/kg and T3 <= 432 mg/kg) and showed the following ranges: oils, 497-828 mg/kg (mainly alpha T and gamma T); margarines, 359-457 mg/kg (mainly gamma T); salad dressings, 20-291 mg/kg (mainly gamma T, except alpha T when soy oil was the main ingredient); cookies, 54-138 mg/kg (mainly gamma T); snacks, 101-220 mg/kg (mainly gamma T); nuts, 22-201 mg/kg (mainly alpha T); vegetables, 2-152 mg/kg (mainly alpha T); pasta, 24-90 mg/kg; cereals, 4-56 mg/kg (mainly beta T3 followed by alpha T); fish, 2-39 mg/kg (mainly alpha T); fried tofu, 64 mg/kg (mainly gamma T); breads, 20-22 mg/kg (mainly beta T3); fat-free mayonnaise, 5 mg/kg (mainly alpha T); poi (fermented taro root), 2 mg/kg (mostly alpha T); and fruits, 2 (papaya) to 13 mg/kg (canned pumpkin) with alpha T predominating. Cereals fortified with alpha Tac ranked third and eighth among all foods assayed regarding alpha T and TEV levels, respectively. As compared to the few data available in the literature, our values agreed with some (corn flakes, mango fruit, fat-free mayonnaise, dry-roasted macadamia nuts, dry-roasted peanuts, mixed nuts, spaghetti/marinara pasta sauce, oils, and red bell pepper) but differed for many other items. Our results provide new information on the E vitamer content in foods, emphasize the vast differences of bioactivities of individual E vitamers, and confirm the need for analyses of foods consumed in specific study populations.