Vitamin E deficiency is associated with impaired immune responsiveness and increased severity of infection. Vitamin E deficiency has resulted in impaired bactericidal activity of phagocytes, reduced lymphocyte response to mitogens, decreased production of the cytokine IL-2, altered T cell differentiation in the thymus, and increased myocardial injury during viral infection.
Supplementation with vitamin E during viral or bacterial infection (influenza, murine AIDS, herpes simplex virus, Staphylococcus aureus, parainfluenza, Clostridium pelfringens) has been shown to decrease mortality rate or severity of infection in several different animal models. However, not all studies have found an improved resistance to infection from vitamin E supplementation 85 and we are not aware of any human studies that have tested this theory by infecting human subjects and then assessing disease incidence and/or severity.
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