1) Background. Premature infants fed solely on mother milk are prone to develop a latent vitamin E deficiency. The aim of this study was to show developments in α- and γ-tocopherol in premature infants during the first 6 weeks of life. 2) Subjects. In 10 healthy, eutrophic premature infants with birthweight between 1280g and 1640g and gestational age between 28 and 31 weeks α- and γ-tocopherol was determined in plasma (PL) and erythrocytes (RBC) in cord blood (CD) and on days 2, 7, 14, 28 and 42 post partum. 200 μl of blood was used for each determination and HPLC with fluorescence detector was used.

3) Results. (mean ± SD) Tableα- and γ-tocopherol in PL and γ-tocopherol in RBC increased during the study period, while α-tocopherol in RBC decreased. 4) Conclusion. The cellular concentration of α-tocopherol in adults is approximately 10-fold greater than γ-tocopherol, althoughγ-tocopherol is the much more common vitamin in daily nutrition, including mother milk. Due to the immature liver of premature babies the specific take-up of α-tocopherol is not sufficient, leading to higher non-specific intracellular take-up of γ-tocopherol to better vitamin E status in premature infants.

Table 1
Full size table