Beneficial Role of Alpha-Carotene in Metabolic Health Highlighted in New Study

22 Mar 2017 --- A type of pro-vitamin A has been found to play a critical role in preserving optimal health, according to a new study. The vitamin, Alpha-carotene has been found to aid the maintenance of phenotypic flexibility, also known as the ability to respond to physiological changes, in healthy overweight subjects.

The double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover study, looked at 36 healthy overweight and obese male subjects who were supplemented with anti-inflammatory dietary mixture (resveratrol, green tea extract, alpha-tocopherol, vitamin C, n-3 (omega-3) polyunsaturated fatty acids, and tomato extract) in hard and soft gel capsules for 5 weeks, followed by a nutritional challenge test (NCT) with high content of fat.

When examining the correlation at fasting, plasma alpha-carotene shows inverse relationship with pro-inflammatory proteins.

Conversely in the micronutrient status correlation network, alpha-carotene showed inverse correlation with inflammatory parameters upon NCT.

The results also show that gamma-tocopherol helps with modulation of peptides that are associated with insulin sensitivity.

In addition, higher plasma gamma-tocopherol enhanced the inflammatory response. The results from this study, collectively, show that both alpha-carotene and gamma-tocopherol may help in the modulation of metabolic-inflammatory processes.

“Previous study conducted by the researchers from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also has proven that high serum level of alpha-carotene is associated with lower risks of death from metabolic health such as cardiovascular disease over a mean follow-up period of almost 14 years,” says CheeYen Lau, Nutritionist of ExcelVite.

“The current study is the first to provide insights of the importance of alpha-carotene (pro-vitamin A) and gamma-tocopherol (vitamin E) in health with regard to phenotypic flexibility such as attenuation of inflammatory response that may link to metabolic health.”

“Hence, the role of alpha-carotene in metabolic health maintenance is once again being highlighted.”

“When comparing to other commercial carotene sources with negligible amount of alpha-carotene, EVTene - natural mixed-carotene complex from palm contains the highest concentration of alpha-carotene (approximately 33%) in the market.”

“It not only contains alpha-carotene, but also beta-carotene and a small amount of other carotenoids.”

“What makes EVTene unique is that its carotenoids composition is exactly the same as found in carrots,” added Lau.

“Therefore, EVTene is a good natural source of alpha-carotene and beta-carotene that can be incorporated in our daily diets and/or dietary supplements to maintain metabolic health via immunomodulation.”