Hello and welcome to The Nutrition Diva Podcast. I'm your host, Monica Reinegel. And if

you are a longtime listener, then you probably know that many of the topics that I cover

on the podcast are suggested by you, by listeners. And I've gotten a lot of great questions

that don't require an entire episode to answer, but that I'd love to respond to. So this

week, I have five of them. And in most cases, if not all, there are related episodes in the

archives if you'd like to go deeper. And you'll find links to those in our show notes, which,

as always, are at quick and dirty tips.com. So let's start out with one that came in on the

Nutrition Diva listener line, which, by the way, you can reach at 4439616206.

Hi, I have a question about topical vitamin E. I'm aware that vitamin E supplements should

be avoided with people who are taking blood dinners, but I was wondering if its topical

use would be an alternative way to help skin.

As I talked about in episode number 293, vitamin E is one of the most common nutrient shortfalls.

You don't actually need all that much of it, just 15 milligrams per day, but nine out

of 10 Americans still fall short on vitamin E. And this listener is absolutely correct that

people who are taking blood dinners or who are preparing for surgery are often advised

not to take vitamin E supplements. Vitamin E is a natural anti-coagulant, and combining

supplements with blood thinners can be too much of a good thing.

Vitamin E from foods is not a concern in this situation, however, and there are some other

advantages to getting vitamin E from foods rather than supplements. Most supplements only

provide the alpha-to-coferol form of vitamin E, but foods provide a range of all the different

to-coferols and tocotrayanols that make up the vitamin E family. Nuts, seeds, avocado,

and whole grains are going to be your primary sources of natural vitamin E, and you know

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