Enhancing Effects on Vitamin E Activity of Sesame Lignans

Sesame seed and vitamin E are traditionally recognized to be the food components with anti-ageing effects. However, ninety eight percent of the vitamin E in sesame seed is γ-tocopherol, which has low vitamin E activity. We observed that sesame seed produced higher concentrations of vitamin E in the animal body, and could prove that the primary cause of high tocopherol concentrations in the animals fed sesame seed is that sesame lignan, characteristic components of sesame seed, inhibit the degradation of vitamin E to carboxyethylhydroxychroman. The inhibition of vitamin E metabolism is a unique characteristic of sesame seed lignans as compared with other plant lignans. We observed that tocotrienol is present specifically in the skin and adipose tissues. Dietary tocotrienol accumulated in the skin prevents oxidative damage induced by UVB irradiation. Sesame lignans induce higher tocotrienol concentrations in the skin, and act together with tocotrienol to prevent oxidative damage induced by UVB irradiation.