544 THE TOCOPHEROLS 



sumption that approximately 50 % of ingested tocopherol is absorbed, it 

 appears that a normal adult on an ax^erage American diet would have a net 

 absorption of about 7 to 10 mg. of d-a-tocopherol, daily. 



c. Tissue Storage 



Most tissues and organs of man contain tocopherol, chiefly in the form 

 of a-tocopherol, as first reported by Abderhalden who carried out a series 

 of analyses on organs from human fetuses, newborn infants, and 

 adults. ^^^ These findings have been generally verified and extended by 

 other studies^^^"^^^ which begin to give a fairly satisfactory picture of to- 



TABLE III 

 Estimated Content of Total Tocohperols in Human Subjects 



" From Quaife and Dju-'^i^ 



copherol distribution and concentration in man. Unlike vitamin A, which 

 is stored largely in the liver, tocopherol is stored chiefly in the adipose 

 tissue. On the basis of tocopherol content of a wide variety of tissues from 

 two healthy adults, both cases of accidental death, total body storage has 

 been estimated to be 3.4 g. for a 20-year-old male and 8 g. for a 40-year-old 

 female (Table III). Accepting 5 g. as the average body storage in \\ell- 

 nourished adults, an individual of 70 kg. body weight would possess ap- 



1" R. Abderhalden, Intern. Z. Vitaminforsch. 16, 309, 319 (1945). 

 156 M. L. Quaife and M. Y. Dju, /. Biol. Chem. 180, 263 (1949). 

 1" K. E. Mason, M. Y. Dju, and L. J. Filer, Jr., Federation Proc. 11, 449 (1952). 

 158 M. Y. Dju, K. E. Mason, and L. J. Filer, Jr., Etudes Neo-natales 1, 49 (1952). 

 150 K. E. Mason and M. Y. Dju, Nutrition Symposium Series, National Vitamin Foun- 

 dation, New York, 7, 1 (1953). 



