Dr. Barrie Tan on Tocotrienols: Annatto Vitamin E, Lipid Antioxidant Protection, and Clinical Uses
[If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.]
Dr. Ben Weitz hosts Dr. Barrie Tan to discuss tocotrienols, lesser-known vitamin E family members (eight total: four tocopherols and four tocotrienols) that differ from common alpha-tocopherol-only supplements. Tan describes discovering tocotrienols in annatto in South America, noting annatto is uniquely tocopherol-free and rich in delta and gamma tocotrienols. He argues alpha-tocopherol is only clearly tied to bringing a fetus to full term and that excess alpha-tocopherol can antagonize tocotrienol absorption and clinical results. Tan emphasizes tocotrienols as superior lipid antioxidants that protect cell-membrane phospholipids and help stabilize omega-3 oils, and reviews studies and proposed benefits across fatty liver disease, metabolic syndrome/diabetes, dyslipidemia, inflammation markers, bone density in post-menopausal women and obesity, plaque-related endpoints, and selected cancers, plus discussion of radiation/antioxidant concerns and dosing ranges used in trials.
00:00 Show Intro and Mission
00:59 Meet Dr Barrie Tan
03:12 Annatto Discovery Story
08:03 Tocotrienols vs Tocopherols
11:20 Lipid Antioxidant Explained
16:16 Omega 3 Protection Strategy
20:34 Alpha Tocopherol Antagonism
24:26 Clinical Wins and Conditions
25:53 Obesity Study Results
30:33 Cancer Research and Ferroptosis
31:40 Delta Gamma Standouts
32:10 Iron Overload Ferroptosis Link
33:57 Apollo Wearable Sponsor
35:27 Antioxidants During Cancer Therapy
38:05 Radiation Countermeasure Evidence
43:31 Cancer Dosage Guidance
45:35 Heart Metabolic Benefits
49:35 Statins CoQ10 GG Explained
54:28 Black Seed Oil Combo
55:47 Books Vitamin K Wrap Up
58:10 Podcast Closing Credits
Dr. Barrie Tan has a PhD in chemistry, and he has spent his life dedicated to researching vitamin E, among other nutritional compounds. He was chief science officer for Designs For Health from 2018 to 2025. He’s currently senior advisor for EVERWELL Health, and he is credited with discovering tocotrienols in palm, rice, and annatto, with annatto being the most efficient source.
Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure. Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111.
Transcript:
Dr. Ben Weitz: If you’re looking for clinically useful insights, not wellness hype, then this is the place for you. Welcome to the Rational Wellness Podcast, the podcast for functional and integrative practitioners who want to practice with greater clarity and precision. I’m Dr. Ben Weitz, and each week, I sit down with the leading clinicians, researchers, and lab innovators to explore the science, lab testing, and clinical reasoning behind modern root cause medicine. This is a show focused on practical, evidence-informed insights that you can actually use in patient care. Please subscribe to the Rational Wellness Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube. Please tell your friends and colleagues, and if you could give us a ratings and review on Apple or Spotify, we would certainly appreciate it. Finally, to access the show notes and the full transcript, please go to my website, drweitz.com. Hello, [00:01:00] Rational Wellness podcasters.
Today, we’re going to be having a science-filled discussion with Dr. Barrie Tan, who is the world’s leading expert on a vitamin E compound known as tocotrienols. Some of you may not know what tocotrienols are, but they’re part of the vitamin E family, which consists of eight soluble forms: alpha, beta, gamma, and delta-tocopherol, and alpha, beta, gamma, and delta-tocotrienols.
Most multivitamins and other nutritional supplements that contain vitamin E only contain alpha-tocopherol, which is generally considered to be vitamin E. One of the better sources for research on vitamins, the Linus Pauling Institute’s Micronutrient Information Center, I just looked this up, in its detailed article on vitamin E states [00:02:00] that the body preferentially uses alpha-tocopherol, and only alpha-tocopherol supplementation can reverse vitamin E deficiency symptoms. Therefore, only alpha-tocopherol is defined as vitamin E.
Dr. Barrie Tan is here to give us his wisdom. He has a PhD in chemistry, and he has spent his life dedicated to researching vitamin E, among other nutritional compounds. He was chief science officer for Designs For Health from 2018 to 2025. He’s currently senior advisor for EVERWELL Health, and he is credited with discovering tocotrienols in palm, rice, and annatto, with annatto being the most efficient source. Dr. Tan, thank you so much for spending some time with us today.
Dr. Barrie Tan: Same to you, Dr. Weitz, for having me back on again and talk about something that is very passionate to me and I’ve spent many decades working on. So would love to field question and answer things, and also queries from your audience.
Dr. Ben Weitz: Absolutely. So since everybody loves a love story, perhaps you can tell us how you went down to South America and met one of the true loves of your life.
Dr. Barrie Tan: Well, thank you and this story never seem to fail me in repeating and telling over. By the time I went to South America to look for this plant, I actually have already been working on tocotrienol probably about 15 years before that. The reason I went to South America is not quite like what you might think. The reason I went to South America in the early 1990s was there was a whole host of study with alpha-tocopherol that failed. If you look at the study, the vitamin E failed. At best it didn’t work. At worst it may do harm. If the audience look at the literature, that is notwithstanding what you mentioned about Oregon State University publish, if you look at the literature, most of the vitamin E, referring to alpha-tocopherol, at best did not work, at worst fail.
So I was fearing that the tocotrienol, which is another smaller, less known form of vitamin E, would be thrown away with the bath water because of the vitamin E published in the literature. So in 1994, there was an ophthalmologist at Harvard, her name is Johanna Seddon, and she said, “This is almost like a left turn suddenly. On the back of the retina of the eye to filter out the blue light, the retina is filled with lutein and zeaxanthin.” So we now know that this is good for macular degeneration, all that. This is not good-
Dr. Ben Weitz: Yeah, those are included in the AREDS formula and other formulas-
Dr. Barrie Tan: That’s right … for macular. Yeah. A- and then, so and this is early 1990. So I [00:05:00] knew that in the petal of the marigold this would be very rich source of this. So I went to South America for this reason- … to look for the marigold that would be in the plant. So I was not there looking for anything like annatto on the background you see here like that. Not like that. So I went, and I want to show you the picture on my book, The Truth About Vitamin E, and which you can download free, and you can see a younger me with a- … marigold plant there. So that was real. And so I went there and- Fate has it, I discover the I fo- I, sorry, I found the marigold, which is what I went for, but fate has it literally 30 feet away from me, I saw this annatto plant here.
And I knew the annatto plant, the color is also a carotenoid like lutein and zeaxanthin. But the unusual thing is if you touch it, it stains your hand. Now, all of us eat carrot, [00:06:00] eat tomato. It doesn’t just stain your hand. You almost have to hold a shaved carrot for an hour or so. Maybe a little orangey thing will come out in your palm.
Otherwise, it doesn’t come out. It you have to cook the tomato sauce for a long time before the lycopene comes out into the oil. So therefore, in the plant world, the carotenoids, it trap inside the cytoplasm to protect it. The lone exception is annatto. It actually stains your hand. So then, Dr. Weitz, I surmise there must be a powerful antioxidant that protect the carotene for annatto from degradation. It was only a guess, and I make many guesses in my life, and they end up in cul-de-sac. So I’m not as smart as you think, you know? So but this is the one that did turn out good. So I analyzed it. I was actually expecting it to be a polyphenol, but it was [00:07:00] not.
It actually was a vitamin E molecule, one, so that was a surprise, one. And two, it was not tocopherol, because most plant kingdom make tocopherol. And instead it was tocotrienol. And then the last surprising fact was it was the only source in my entire life that I’ve been looking for vitamin E that is free of tocopherol. From other sources like rice and palm that you mentioned, they have a mixture of tocopherol and tocotrienol. Not so with annatto. It’s completely free of tocopherol. Right then I knew I stumble on something that probably this would be very significant and meaningful to intervene in life. That year of the discovery was 1999. So now I have been on it for a long time. I’ll pass it back to you, and I’m sure you have many other questions. So that was a simple a discovery, but it was a blessing. It was… I didn’t even go [00:08:00] to South America looking for it, so.
Dr. Ben Weitz: So we know vitamin E, and people generally refer to tocopherol as an important nutrient. Does, is tocotrienol, is it have the same purpose? Does it serve the same beneficial functions as tocopherols? Or is it a separate compound and ideally, should we have both tocopherols and tocotrienols in our diet?
Dr. Barrie Tan: This is a very insightful question that you ask, but it’s burning in my heart be-because you mentioned earlier on, right? That the only vitamin E is alpha-tocopherol that mitigate the only conditions which is a deficient of vitamin E in the body from Oregon State University. That statement is true and not true. Okay. It is true because they say the vitamin E is alpha-tocopherol, and that the [00:09:00] only disease known of the deficiency they cannot use alpha-tocopherol to trap in like that. But it, it is very specific. Vitamin E, as in alpha-tocopherol, for the only known disease. That actually mean the only disease ever known that alpha-tocopherol would work on the dis- So if for that reason, yes, it’s true. But it is not true to say that alpha-tocopherol does all this. In fact, alpha-tocopherol has been known at the very best in the 1990, it does nothing. Not cardiovascular disease, not cancer, and at worst, it can even make cancer worse. If you Google, you’re gonna find all this study. It’s very-
Dr. Ben Weitz: By the way, what was… And vitamins are generally known to be a nutrient that prevents a disease. Yes. Okay. Now- What was the disease that vitamin E was supposed to protect? Known for. Yes. A- and vitamin- I know there’s a story about rat fetal, Yes … problems, [00:10:00] right? Resulted,
Dr. Barrie Tan: yes. A- and then for that is even better. Y- you’re very good in asking this question. For that reason, the Oregon State vitamin E statement is inaccurate. The vitamin E that w- alpha-tocopherol may be discovered to cure that disease, but not vitamin E. Alpha-tocopherol is known as a vitamin because it help the fetus to full term. That’s it. It, it- Right … so if you say to cure that disease that they mention, then it’s not because of the vitamin. It’s because of the alpha-tocopherol. Because the reason alpha-tocopherol became a vitamin is because it’s able to bring the fetus to full term.
If it were not that, the alpha-tocopherol cannot be a vitamin. So there is no other definition for vitamin E except to bring the fetus to full term. You can challenge me. You can just type the meaning. But most of the audience, biohackers, and the learned public that listen to you, [00:11:00] they want to know. So when they think of alpha-tocopherol vitamin E, what are they thinking? I tell you what they are thinking. They’re thinking of vitamin E, whether it’s tocopherol or tocotrienol, as an antioxidant
Dr. Ben Weitz: And specifically a fat-soluble antioxidant Yes … that’s what I think of it as
Dr. Barrie Tan: Yes, and if it… now that you mention that, let’s elaborate on that. There was a paper that was published, and it was published in 2018. Let me see. I- in tw- 2021. I forgot to mention this, so now I’m going to mention this. I will be happy to send you the article like that. Here they were studying post-menopausal women. They give them tocotrienol to see if it, they will reduce the osteopenia so they won’t become osteoporotic.
The answer to that piece, because that was what is set to study, yes, it helped them to increase the bone density marker, and then it helped them to reduce the oxidative [00:12:00] damage. That was already published. But they do a subset of this study to study what the tocotrienol increase, and I’ll just read it to you so that if you want, I can send this paper to you.
Basically it increases, the tocotrienol increases the phospholipid, which means the cell membrane of the cell, phospholipid. And the author said that the ability for tocotrienol to increase this is probably to suppress inflammation and reduce oxidative damage by restructuring of the biomembrane so that the phospholipid…
You see, the cell wall itself is a dynamic cell wall because you… Just think of the cell wall as a gated community. You have all the organelles in the cell. You only want the waste to go out of the cell a- and all the goodies like the [00:13:00] cholesterol like the sugar to come in. So the community have to be gated just like you have a g- community, the gated community, what you want to come in and to go out.
You don’t want riffraff to come in, and you want waste to go out in a proper manner like that. So this is what tocotrienol does. In my entire life of studying antioxidant, the word antioxidant is overused a- and overstated. If you think of the major components in our body, there is carbohydrate, sugar, there is fat, there is protein, and usually people do not talk about nucleic acid.
There’s nucleic acid everywhere in our body. Usually, the first three people know. Of this four thing, we want it to be protected from oxidation too. But the one that needed most protection from oxidation is lipid because lipid is the lowest lying fruit for being [00:14:00] oxidized. And phospholipid that on the cell wall, they easily to be oxidized.
And of all the gazillion amount of antioxidant, I’m trying to give one simplistic take-home message to the biohacker. Do not use the word antioxidant as a big brush. Care most about lipid protection, lipid antioxidant. Why? Because the lipid is the easiest thing to get oxidized. If you don’t believe me, summertime is coming.
You put a hunk of steak out on a hot summer day, and then you put a stick of butter on a hot summer day. I can guarantee you eventually both of them will go bad, but I guarantee you the stick of butter will go bad faster than the stick of, th- than the hunk of steak. So therefore, protein get oxidized slower, but the fat oxidize faster, so therefore fat oxidation is the b- So the [00:15:00] antioxidant you want the most is the antioxidant that protect the fat.
And of all the antioxidant that protect the fat, nothing come close to vitamin E. And between the vitamin E, there’s tocopherol and then there’s tocotrienol. And tocopherol is like a policeman. It circle the cell wall, cell membrane like this. And the tocotrienol, because it’s got three double bond, the tail is shorter, it spin 50 time faster.
So actually a tocotrienol capture lipid free radical. Notice how I said it? Lipid free radical on the phospholipid because it spin around 50 time faster. This was done at UC Bl- Berkeley in 1997. So it is buried. I’m kind of bring it back out so that the audience will know. So the take-home message, the lipid antioxidant, the best one are the vitamin E molecule, and the best of the best are tocotrienol.
Dr. Barrie Tan: And why [00:16:00] lipid? Because lipid is the lowest lying fruit of oxidative damage. Think of New England Massachusetts, the militia, they would be the minutemen. So they’ll be the first to go. So if you don’t protect them, they’ll be the first to go. So so- And,
Dr. Ben Weitz: And the fats that are most likely to be oxidized are the polyunsaturated fats, like the fish oils, EPA and DHA, which we highly praise for all their benefits. And so I think w- one of the important times to take your tocotrienols is when you take your fish oil. That’s one of the things that I do. Every time I take fish oil, I always take tocotrienols with them
Dr. Barrie Tan: This is… you said it brilliantly. I know sometime when I said that I don’t remember, other thing it come in. We encourage people to take omega-3 because the omega-3 is very pliable. It make the cell wall very fluid like that. [00:17:00] But the omega-3 have extra number of double bond. High, much easier to get oxidized, and we want the omega-3 to end up in the phospholipid of the cell membrane. Right. So when you do this, the chance of oxidation will be much higher, and therefore you need lipid antioxidant such as toco- By the way, we even have studies on that. We purposely put the tocotrienol inside the fish oil in the soft gel, and when we keep it in real time over 12 month, and the omega-3 that have the tocotrienol last longer. And we simplistically say it just increase the shelf life of the omega-3. Very simple. Why- So can you imagine…
Dr. Ben Weitz: Why isn’t everybody doing that?
Dr. Barrie Tan: Yeah I know. I, I- … you know, the Design For Health fish oil does have it. So, I encourage… I cannot convince other people because they wanted to save pennies. Come on, you know, this is only one or two pennies more- … to do this. If not for anything else, if you and I take omega-3 [00:18:00] so much, the last thing we want to take is bad omega-3. We don’t want that, you know? So- now
Dr. Ben Weitz: would to- would gamma tocopherol, would that provide some of the same benefits or not? Yes.
Dr. Barrie Tan: The gamma tocopherol will also provide albeit slightly less. The… If you use tocopherol, the gamma and delta tocopherol do quite a good job. The alpha tocopherol does not come close to gamma and delta tocopherol, and the tocotrienol did the best job. We compare a mixed tocopherol on the fish oil to that of tocotrienol, and the mixed tocopherol is not as good as the tocotrienol in protecting. And the amount we put in is tiny. We’re talking about 250 to 500 parts per million. It’s almost like a smidgen. Like, like, a half a penny more per soft gel, so it’s a nothing. So, but I’m not able to convince many people to do. Only a few companies do, and in the health professional company Design For Health does.
Dr. Ben Weitz: Now, I just saw a paper [00:19:00] in which they were arguing that there’s these benefits of tocopherols, and there’s- Yeah … these benefits of to- tocotrienols, so we should have both of them in our program. But I think they, Do we miss out anything if we only take tocotrienols and don’t take tocopherols?
Dr. Barrie Tan: We do not miss out. Do not… The, there’s only one lone exception, but to answer your first question, we do not need… I have stopped taking alpha-tocopherol now probably for 30 years. I’m still standing in my 70s. So, yeah. But however, if you eat food, n- and not to say nothing of alpha-tocopherol, if you eat food with vegetable oil like that, yeah, or eat a avocado that have enough fat in it, you will get enough of alpha-tocopherol, perhaps about 10 to 15 milligram a day. That would be fine. You don’t have to take supplemental amount.
And then the a- and then take tocotrienol because it’s antioxidative protection. Remember at the beginning I [00:20:00] told, I said that alpha-tocopherol is known to bring the fetus to full term. So if you want to practicalize that, what does that mean? I would say the only lone place alpha-tocopherol is needed, listen to me carefully now, is in a prenatal. See? It’s obvious. Okay. In a prenatal because it bring the fetus to full term. So the, a- apart from a prenatal, then I don’t think that we need alpha-tocopherol because in every studies that I found, alpha-tocopherol did not pan out.
Dr. Ben Weitz: And also my understanding is the tocotrienols if you take alpha-tocopherol, it interferes with the absorption of the tocotrienols, so you wanna make sure if you do have tocopherols and tocotrienols, that you take them at separate times.
Dr. Barrie Tan: Yes. That… Thank you again Dr. Weitz. You clearly is very knowledgeable in this area and to help support the [00:21:00] understanding of your audience. Yes. We have we discovered this m- almost unpleasantly, but right now I look back years after, so you can laugh about it. So we have five clinical study we actually did this. Five clinical study, so painful to even recalling it. Two of them on the tocotrienol work, and two of them did not work, and one of them kinda like more or less working. So it’s the worst statistic you can have. Two work, two does not work, kinda like half. Then I said, “That means that you just flip the coin, it could be this way or that way.”
So we were very trouble. They were all tocotrienol study. And then we did meta-analysis and found out the two that work- have about 15, 20% alpha-tocopherol. The two that did not work had 25 to 30% alpha-tocopherol, and the one that kinda like work is about 25%. Aha, something spark in my mind to say that, you know, maybe the alpha-tocopherol [00:22:00] being there is not innocuous, that it’s doing something that is negative.
Now, until then, you and I and the audience always thought if a drug is a single substance, then i- then if in nature is a whole concert of things, then the whole concert of things work better, and we came up with the idea that nature make things that are synergistic. I don’t disagree with that. But if you accept the premise of synergism, you cannot automatically reject the premise of antagonism.
And in this example, alpha-tocopherol, which is part of vitamin E, it antagonizes the function of tocotrienol. And by the way, that is not just alone. So now you’re gonna die asking your que- “Well, Dr. Ted, what is other thing that’s antagonistic?” Let me tell you this. All of us take carotenoid, right?
Carotenoid is good for us. You know, vi- beta carotene is [00:23:00] good for the eye. Lycopene lutein is good for the macular. A- and then lycopene is good for cancer- Prostate, yeah … many other thing, and the skin. However When there was a rage about lutein and zeaxanthin for the eye, people make compositized carotenoid, and they put lutein and zeaxanthin and beta-carotene.
Voila. They found out that the, when the beta-carotene were put in lutein and zeaxanthin, the beta-carotene interferes with the absorption of lutein and zeaxanthin, and that was published. A- and the professor’s name is Professor Phyllis Bowen, B-O-W-E-N. So if you Google, you’re gonna find out beta-carotene interferes with the function of lutein and zeaxanthin.
So, so but however, probably for antagonism, probably 1% of mixture antagonize. 99% of thing, if you have a composite thing, it probably synerg- synergize. So therefore, you cannot reject [00:24:00] summarily, so there are exception, and the tocopherol interference of tocotrienol is the, an exception. We found out interfere, so which is why when I discovered the annatto tocotrienol, Dr. Weitz you have no idea what pleasure it bring to me because I… by that time, I have studied tocotrienol for 20 years. I said I really hate to give up this,” you know? And then when I found this source it’s like a light bulb thing. So I repeated the, all the study, and after that, the last 20 years, we probably have 20 clinical trial.
Almost all the annatto tocotrienol work. Why? Because it contain no alpha-tocopherol, one. Two, it contain the two most potent vitamin E, which is delta tocotrienol and gamma tocotrienol, and then it work, and it work on, just to refresh the audience memory, it work on chronic condition. And what chronic condition?
We have studied diabetes, [00:25:00] pre-diabetes, metabolic syndrome, dyslipidemia and fatty liver disease, and also on cancer study, and all these are chronic condition. And as well, we study post-menopausal women with osteopenia, chronic condition. And the very last one, I’m hoping that before we end, you’re gonna ask me this.
The it took us a long time, probably two years longer than necessary because it was right during the COVID time. We decided to go head-on to study does tocotrienol help in people with obesity or not? So that study is now finished, and the professor is revealing that. It’s fantastic. So I’ll pass it back onto you.
I don’t want to hoard the time. If you want to, I can tell you what it did- On people with obesity. This is the last of the champion study on tocotrienol. Sure,
Dr. Ben Weitz: go ahead and tell us about- … so we- That’s right … we’re gonna highlight some of the important benefits of tocotrienols, including for [00:26:00] cardiovascular disease, diabetes, fatty liver, cancer, but tell us about its effect on weight loss.
Dr. Barrie Tan: Yes. In the weight loss thing we, in the obesity study, because we- And of course, we don’t
Dr. Ben Weitz: have to worry about weight loss anymore because we can all take GLP-1s now and then- … it solve all our problems. That is correct. Yeah, when,
Dr. Barrie Tan: when we were doing, when we were… That’s correct. When we were doing the obesity study, we weren’t thinking the weight loss, we were thinking, does the tocotrienol address inflammation like that? But for the weight loss thing, for what it’s worth, in the fatty liver disease study, which we have three clinical trials on that, there were overweight people. But it is obvious because they’re fatty liver, and we found out that they typically lost 10 to 15 pound at three month, at six months, as well as at 12 months.
So we knew when the inflammation is reduced, when the liver stress is reduced, and inflammation is [00:27:00] reduced, and therefore the body adjust and the loss of weight continue. So not really working like a GLP-1, so to speak, but it’s the response of the body to the reduction of stress and inflammation. Now, in the obesity study, we found this.
Dr. Ben Weitz: The professor who- what was the dosage used in that study?
Dr. Barrie Tan: The dosage we did in the fatty liver study was the 300 milligram twice a day. Okay. So it would be the Annatto E, the Design for Health, have 300 milligram two times a day. Just remember, please take it with a meal because if with a meal, it emulsify, properly absorb, like Dr. Weitz had you said that this a lipid-soluble material, so if you have enough fat, it emulsify and then absorb. It does not need any auxiliary helping aid to help it because it, because I’m very conscious about not adding more stuff into it to make it more bioavailable. Just take it with a meal.
The body will do its job for absorption. So [00:28:00] that would be the fatty liver. In in the study with obesity, we decided to give people who are obese 300 milligram, so not the 600 mil, 300 milligram a day, so they carry a lot of burden of weight and study it over six months. And we did not find weight loss.
We did not find weight loss because the body is overwhelmed with weight, one, because they’re obese, not overweight, but like, above, a BMI above 30, one. And two, we did find that the inflammation was reduced, which we expected because it would be– people carried so much stress in their body, the inflammation reduced.
So it’s not a nothing. It is a strong something. And the other one was a surprise find. When people who have obesity, they also have osteopenia and muscular loss, but the fat mask it. So when we [00:29:00] did the scan to the body, DEXA scan, we found that the bone mineral density of the hip bone, the largest part of the bone was improved.
So that to us was a very significant find that the tocotrienol in-increased the bone mineral density of the hip bone and reduced the inflammation. And so, and also it reduced s-a certain cytokine that is connected to people who have inflammatory diseases like, Crohn’s disease, like, what are some inflammation? Psoriasis rheumatoid arthritis. So these are genetic disease of inflammation. There’s a certain marker that increase, and this silence that marker. So overall, the obesity study teaches us that the fat that was altered was less inflammatory [00:30:00] fat. The bone mineral density was increased in the hip bone and What was the last one?
Oh, and the inflammation that caused to the body was reduced so that it was… It’s almost like it, it is shunned to a lesser kind of inflammation to the major kind that would stress that person out. So this is the last of the study that I’m doing on tocotrienol until somebody tells me otherwise.
Our study on cancer in Denmark’s still ongoing, and so right now I don’t have more to report. The one that were positive from before was it helped people with ovarian cancer, and it also helped people with colon cancer, and two or three more study still in the works. So, maybe the next time when we talk I can mention more on this.
Other people, by the way, continue to do studies on tocotrienol, not us, [00:31:00] and they clearly show a other mechanistic understanding of oxidative reduction, one by looking at the fat oxidation. Not a surprise to me, because I mentioned to you it help in the phospholipid. And another one a kind of mechanism…
In other word, when our body is inflamed, it releases the iron from the hemoglobin, and the iron in the hemoglobin accelerate the oxidation, and that kind of oxidation is called ferroptosis, F-E-R-R-O-P-S-I-S. And it is very clear. It was only published two, three months ago. They check all the four tocopherols and all the four tocotrienol.
I I’m not kidding you. I- it sounded like I’m making this up. And the four tocopherol i- is lower activity, and the four tocotrienol highest. And the highest of the four tocotrienol, the two standing out, [00:32:00] it delta tocotrienol and gamma tocotrienol. I mean, I mean, how… it’s as good as it get. I have nothing to do with it. I only discovered the last- and by the way,
Dr. Ben Weitz: Dr. Tan, up to 30% of the population have at least one copy of one of the genes that makes them hold onto iron. Exactly. So hemochromatosis is way more common than people realize, and the reason why we don’t know about it is because very rarely do people get their iron levels measured, especially men. They never measure iron levels in men. So we do a full iron panel on all of our patients, and we find quite a number of people have elevated iron they didn’t know about
Dr. Barrie Tan: Wow. Dr. Weitz, I know you are a clinician. If you can send me some studies on hematosis, then I can dive deep on it, and then remind me to send to you [00:33:00] that outstanding paper published in a very high level journal called Ferroptosis. It was done in Japan. Four to co- four photo… they decipher it blow by blow of the eight isomers, and then delta and gamma are head and shoulder above the other one. Then I said, “Wow, my goodness.” Even when in- they study in mechanistic thing, they still can pin down. I am mostly trying to address does it work on people with this condition or that condition?
I did that, and then they are able to understand this. But now if you are studying people with hematosis, then hey, that is aligned closer to ferroptosis. So I will send that to you. Then there will be an easy recommendation for people to take this to reduce the chance of ferroptosis and therefore manage their hematosis. So thank you. That’s great. I learned something from you maybe. Even as a interviewer. Thank you, friend.
Dr. Ben Weitz: I’ve really been enjoying this discussion, but I [00:34:00] just wanna take a few minutes to tell you about a product that I’m very excited about. Imagine a device that can help you manage stress, improve your sleep, and boost your focus, all without any effort on your part. The Apollo wearable is designed to just… to do just that. Created by neuroscientists and physicians, this innovative device uses gentle vibrations to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, helping you feel calmer, more focused, and better rested. Among the compelling reasons to use the Apollo wearable are that users experience a 40% reduction in stress and anxiety. Patients feel that they can sleep. Their sleep improves up to additional 30 minutes of sleep per night. It helps you [00:35:00] to boost your focus and concentration, and it’s scientifically backed. And the best part is you can get all these benefits with a special $40 discount by using the promo code WEITZ, W-E-I-T-Z, my last name, at checkout to enjoy these savings. So go to Apollo Neuro and use the promo code WEITZ today. And now back to our discussion
Dr. Ben Weitz: So let’s talk about this cancer thing. So, I’ve read some about tocotrienols promoting programmed cell death, apoptosis a- affecting the pathways that result in angiogenesis. And so it has these positive benefits, but patients who are undergoing treatment for cancer, if they are getting radiation or they are getting chemotherapy, it’s very [00:36:00] common for their doctors to say, “No matter what you do not take any antioxidants, because that will uncouple your treatment, because we’re killing the cancer cells with free radicals.”
Dr. Barrie Tan: Yes. I heard that a narrative. I think that narrative was- It’s
Dr. Ben Weitz: been talked about quite a bit. And- yeah … and then we have the famous rant from Dr. Watson where he ranted about this.
Dr. Barrie Tan:Yeah. A- that, the concept of that was because some of the anti some of the anti-cancer drug causes free radical, and the free radical that get into the cancer cell, and the free radical kill the cancer cell. So they got-
Dr. Ben Weitz: And supposedly that’s one of the ways that radiation kills cancer as well.
Dr. Barrie Tan: Yes. A- and so when they did that… So if you take antioxidant, the con- conceptual narrative would be the [00:37:00] antioxidant you take will sequester the function of those pro-oxidant that kill the cancer cell. So it came from that construct.
Yes. I think the audience need to know of the number of anti-cancer drug that are pro-oxidant, there are few. And I can mention so one of them, methotrexate was one of them that does that. But most anti-cancer drug today is far from that. They are protein, and they are protein that wrap around the signal and then just cut off the signaling.
They have nothing to do with anything antioxidant. So this antioxidant thing is probably 1% of the whole thing. If you just look at anti-angiogenic thing, like Amgen’s thing B- Bevacizumab, what antioxidant? What pro anti? It’s a protein. They wrap around something. What are the doctor talking about? So the anti-cancer drug i- it stop the anti-angiogenesis.
It stop the signaling, the topic. It’s not pro-oxidant thing. That is way too simplistic. Yes, they [00:38:00] said that. In the animal- what about,
Dr. Ben Weitz: what about with radiation?
Dr. Barrie Tan: Okay, radiation thing. The, my radiation contesting it. When the radiation come in to kill, the idea that radiation will cause pro-oxidation thing, it is It’s so simplistic, it’s out of whack.
Because if you talk about a pro-oxidant, right, it’s a pro-oxidant that work on the cell that cause free radical. But when you have gamma radiation, the gamma radiation, if it cause oxidative damage, it would be 1% or less. We are talking about gamma rays. Gamma rays is so severe compared to UV radiation or some other radiation that will cause oxidative damage.
This gamma ray go directly to the nucleus and it will kill the nucleus. So what [00:39:00] oxidation? It just directly knock out the nucleus. So what are the doctors talking about? So if you look at how gamma radiation work, you know in Japan during Fukushima thing, I- if people wondering of this, right, during the Fukushima radiation thing, there are people who are first responder.
So they went straight to the thing to see if they can contain it. The Japanese government know. So when they went in and contained and shut it down like that, when they walk out, they are living dead because the gamma radiation have gone to their entire body, have killed all the mitochondria. Kill all the mitochondria.
Who talked about pro-oxidant? They just kill the entire nucleus and the cell so that when they walk out, they were already the living dead. So when you talk about gamma radiation, to talk about it as a pro-oxidant, i- it’s just kinda like, [00:40:00] what kinda talk is that? That it actually completely destroy. It’s a system failure.
Pro-oxidant does not cause system failure. This thing, the whole go, go in. When they walk out, within a day or two they die. Pro-oxidant does it? I don’t think so. So this is a total system collapse. So on that one, if the audience is still not convinced about that, let me tell you this, not from me, not from my research, and they should go to look at themself.
It came from the Uniformed Services University, and that may surprise you. What the heck is Dr. Kan talking about? This is in M- this is in Maryland Bethesda, Maryland. These are where our armed forces get their master’s and PhD degree, not where they become soldiers. So they do that on dangerous type research.
So they’ll give gamma radiation to kill the whole animal, and [00:41:00] when they put our soldiers in harm ways, the soldiers have to be protected. So they have to figure out what kind of shield that they have to take in, and they’re so severe they can’t wait to take in the food. They’re intramuscularly in- injected.
You don’t listen to me. You just go Google yourself. You Google Uniform Services University, and the institute in the Uniform Service University is called AFRRI, which mean Armed Forces Radiation and Radiobiology Institute. It’s as clear as daylight. AFRRI of the Uniform Service University. You Google that, and you type tocotrienol and radiation countermeasure.
They use very militaristic word. Just type the word tocotrienol and radiation countermeasure. They have studied thousands of [00:42:00] chemical, and only six of them survive what they call a potential candidate for radiation countermeasure. And I kid you not, of the six of them, two of them are tocotrienol. I kid you not.
Two of them tocotrienol, and the two tocotrienol is gamma tocotrienol and delta tocotrienol. But aren’t you
Dr. Ben Weitz: kind of making a case how this could interfere with the radiation treatment for cancer?
Dr. Barrie Tan: No, it will not re- it will not interfere Okay the radiation is so severe, the radiation… So however, it does the opposite.
The tocotrienol actually-
Dr. Ben Weitz: Protects the healthy cells … pro- protects,
Dr. Barrie Tan: pro- protect the normal cells- Right … from being hurt. Okay. So therefore, if a person is going to radiation- They’re more likely to survive- … it will protect the normal cells …
Dr. Ben Weitz: the radiation. Yeah. Sur-
Dr. Barrie Tan: survive the radia- Because when a person go to radiation, it the, their part of the body that go to radia- is severely inflamed.
So this would quieten down the severe [00:43:00] inflammatory part of the radiation, like that. So even though the radiation is surgical, but surgical not on individual cell. So therefore while 90% or 95% is on the cancerous cell, it is possible that about 5 to 10% is in the normal cell. So it protect the normal cell.
And by the way, even if the radiation is given with the tocotrienol is only known to kill the cancer cell. It doesn’t help the cancer cell- Okay … to survive. So,
Dr. Ben Weitz: so, what do we know about dosage for what a s- a cancer patient might wanna take who’s undergoing… Let’s say a patient has a certain type of cancer.
I don’t know if we, i- if you can talk about specific forms of cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer. Do we know what kind of dosage might make sense for somebody like that to take to protect themselves?
Dr. Barrie Tan: Okay. I can give a probable suggestion close to it. Okay. That’s good. The cancers that we have [00:44:00] found currently, we tried on probably half a dozen to eight different cancer, but for the one that it looked promising pancreatic cancer.
You can Google and read yourself. Pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and colon cancer. Okay. So this looked promising. And of the dosage that were given to them were anywhere between 600 milligram to 900 milligram. It’s not that they’ll be high. A typical soft gel contain 300 milligram, so it’s taken between two pills or three pills a day.
In a Danish study, they take 900 milligrams, so three of those 300 milligram breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And- In the pancreatic cancer thing, if it move forward in the Tampa study where the pancreatic cancer, it’s a Tampa, Florida cancer study done on like that, they would be taking about two either 400 milligram or 300 [00:45:00] milligram softgel, two a day, so therefore it’s approximating to 600 milligram or 800 milligram.
Now remember, these are quite severe case, like stage four cancer patient, so when people are more on stage two and three we have not done clinical study, so the dosage level might be lower. The Danish study was stage four, and the pancreatic cancer was not stage four but they still use 600 or 800 milligram because pancreatic cancer is probably one of the deadliest of all cancer.
Dr. Ben Weitz: So let’s- So it- Let’s talk about cardiovascular disease. Now unfortunately, that’s probably gonna have to be the last topic ’cause I’m gonna be running out of time, but how can tocotrienols what benefit do they have for patients in reducing cardiovascular disease? I know that they can help to reduce LDL cholesterol.
Now a lot of us like to focus on ApoB. They can help with I understand they may have some [00:46:00] benefit for lipoprotein A reduce inflammation. Talk about tocotrienols for cardiovascular disease.
Dr. Barrie Tan: Okay. In earlier days, we studied this ApoB. In latter time, I didn’t see so much. I know it’s very hot and popular.
We continue to study LDL, and the sometime the LDL drop about 15%, not as high as what statin could do but the LDL tend to be more buoyant LDL and not the dense LDL. The latter one would be more atherogenic. And then it also increases the HDL li- like if they’re 4%, it maybe go to 5%, something like that.
Not dramatic, but good enough. And also we notice that e- even though we study lipidemia, we notice that the triglyceride consistently drop, and that is good news to me because the triglyceride is also atherogenic, but they’re particularly important people, to people who are pre-diabetes and diabetes [00:47:00] because in pre-diabetes and diabetes, the hypertriglyceridemia is a hallmark.
It’s hypertriglyceridemia often precedes that of hyperglycemia, so controlling the triglyceride is good, so it’s one piece. Another piece is that- It had to do with the atherogenicity o- of like, VCAM and ICAM. These are the e- endothelial molecule. They stick onto the artery and then they form plaque, and we saw the reduction of this VCAM and ICAM platelet aggregation like that.
So they have to do with more the progression of the plaque forming, so not directly on the LDL. So we found that to be
Dr. Ben Weitz: also true, and- So wait a minute. So you’re saying tocotrienols inhibit arterial plaque formation?
Dr. Barrie Tan: Yes. It, it either control, maintain the same, or i- in animal study it oftentimes regresses the arteriosclerotic pla- plaque in the tune of approximately 25%.
[00:48:00] So that is very powerful. Wow. That’s
Dr. Ben Weitz: really significant.
Dr. Barrie Tan: Yeah, that is significant. And als- and then in terms of a simplistic measure, we measure C-reactive protein, interleukin 6, NF-kappa B, tumor necrosis factor many time, and consistently they drop. Typically they drop anywhere from 20 to 40%, particularly C-reactive protein.
So for us, that’s good enough. Now, I know that you did not ask me for diabetes. We consistently found in pre-diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and people with diabetes, certainly they overlap with fatty liver condition. We found that the hyp- the glycemia drop the m- the mevalonate aldehyde, the oxidized fat drop and also they cross over to liver.
We found that the liver enzyme ALT, AST drop. So all this is i- indicating to us that it seem to silence the inflammation of the liver, which is where [00:49:00] most of these metabolic syndrome originate. That’s why people want to focus on fatty liver disease. Fatty liver disease is almost like an organistic manifestation of metabolic syndrome, like that.
So we found it. So when I say this, it is a constellation of it. And we also found people that when they take tocotrienol their blood pressure also improve. So we found this, so but as to the cardiovascular thing we focus on lipid, and it does help on the lipid as well as inflammation.
Dr. Ben Weitz: Is it a good idea to take it with lipid-lowering substances?
Like let’s say I’m helping a patient to reduce their cardiovascular risk and I have them on, say, Red Yeast Rice and maybe a couple of other things. Would it be a good idea to add the tocotrienols in there?
Dr. Barrie Tan: I think so. E- even if the doctor recommended them to take statin drug, we found that when they take the tocotrienol and [00:50:00] statin improve the statin function, one piece.
Now, when people take statin drug, red yeast rice is a f- lesser case, but sometime occasionally it can do hap- still happen. When they take red yeast rice, which is small amount of statin, or take a statin drug, they have a higher chance of myopathy, muscle problem. Maybe another interview would help in this.
The… Think of it this way. The, if you end with this, that would be very sweet. The statin work, work on here, think of Interstate 95. It work in Boston, and then somewhere in New York City, cholesterol drop desire. And then somewhere down in Virginia, people don’t talk about this, but when you get to, when you get to Georgia, A- Atlanta, then they saw that CoQ10 drop.
I’m here to explain to you the reason when you take statin drug and in cholesterol drop desired, but people don’t talk about Virginia, but talk about Atlanta, where CoQ10 drop. The reason [00:51:00] CoQ10 drop in Atlanta is because in Virginia, there’s a compound called geranylgeraniol the body makes. So when you inhibit at Boston, GG drop, and when GG drop, GG is the building block in the human body for the making of CoQ10.
So the reason CoQ10 drop when people take statin is because statin decimate GG, the building block for CoQ10, and that’s why there is not enough GG to make CoQ10. Now, that’s the CoQ10 piece. But GG is obligatory for the synthesis of skeletal muscle protein. So separately, if you inhibit GG, it’s gonna cause myopathy.
That’s it. So t- please interview me another time where I can dwell in and just talking about that piece. That is so sweet because the Interstate 95 is a big deal. I purposely choose that intentionally, of course, as an analogy. Yeah. So in, in other
Dr. Ben Weitz: words, another way of understanding what you’re saying is that [00:52:00] statins block the mevalonate pathway by which the liver makes cholesterol.
Mm-hmm. And that pathway is also the pathway by which the body produces CoQ10. So that’s why statins also block CoQ10, and CoQ10’s essential for mitochondrial function and muscle function, and that’s one of the reasons why patients who take statins may have muscle problems, though it’s argued how often this occurs
Dr. Barrie Tan: 100%.
So, so I think- and there’s another
Dr. Ben Weitz: nutritional compound, which you just mentioned, which is geranylgeraniol, or GG, that would be beneficial in preventing some of the downstream negative effects of statins. And and there’s actually other substances besides CoQ10 that are also produced that the body needs [00:53:00] as well, correct?
Dr. Barrie Tan: That is correct. So I think right now we are finishing some clinical study using GG to see how it may impact CoQ10, to see how it may impact testosterone testosterone, and also how it may impact the muscle function. So, all of these separate clinical study. So we should have a study.
A- and GG is even more spectacular than other compound. Be- we take many nutritional supplement that are exogenous from our body, meaning our body don’t make them, including tocotrienol. But a few compounds that we take additionally, our body makes them. I call that endogenous compound, like CoQ10.
But e- you, e- even if you don’t take CoQ10, your body makes CoQ10, otherwise you cannot live. And then, and now, and one of those endogenous compound is GG. So therefore, if for not any other reason, if y- give me another interview the next time, even if you don’t say, talk about [00:54:00] anything, you simply interview me, “Dr.
Tan, just tell me-” “… what does GG do in our human body?” By knowing that, you know that the decimation of that will mean something. Your biohackers will be 100% interested in it because it’s a compound your body makes, so it’s endogenous. So a- another time, I would love to do this, and I will probably be as equally passionate as I am now talking about tocotrienol.
Okay. So, so
Dr. Ben Weitz: We’ll plan to do that. I also have other questions about the benefits of tocotrienols potentially for brain, for post-menopausal, m- go more into the bone, anti-aging. But I wanna squeeze one more quick question is there’s a product that Designs for Health offers that combines black seed oil with tocotrienols.
And-
Dr. Barrie Tan: Now one, one important question
Dr. Ben Weitz: Why did you put those two together? They’re probably gonna take- Oh … an hour to explain, but… Yeah no.
Dr. Barrie Tan: That product already existed before I had previously joined Design for [00:55:00] Health. They put black seed oil because the flax seed black seed oil w- was helping in the anti-inflammatory aspect.
Right. But I, I had, I have co- common time told them that the tocotrienol already have super potent anti-inflammatory aspect. So if you take that, the amount of tocotrienol is lower, they depend on the black seed oil to do the anti-inflammatory aspect. So usually I sp- I… In all the clinical study we do not have black seed oil.
We directly use the tocotrienol itself.
Dr. Ben Weitz: Oh, okay. Cool. All right, great. Thank you so much, Dr. Tan. Awesome information. The importance of tocotrienols for health, I definitely include it as one of the supplements I take regularly. So, a- any, Shall we direct people to, Do you have a book coming out or courses or anything like that?
Yes,
Dr. Barrie Tan: yes. Beside this book, which you can download, The Truth About Vitamin E, I’m now finishing- Okay, where
Dr. Ben Weitz: do they go to download that book? Do [00:56:00] they go to barrytan.com? Oh can you- Or-
Dr. Barrie Tan: Yeah, you go to my barrytan.com, you can download the book. If you see me in person, I’ll happy to sign one and pass on to you.
I’m finishing a book, it took two and a half, three years to write, The Truth About Vitamin K. I didn’t mention it here. Oh, wow. The GG- I love talking
Dr. Ben Weitz: about vitamin K.
Dr. Barrie Tan: Oh, you should do… So as soon as the book come out, you’ve seen it. So we have many th- The, the- we… Yeah, no don’t you cannot further ask on this, but GG is responsible in the human body to make vitamin K2. Now, that is the piece that people don’t know about, and that vitamin K2 is MK4, not the popular MK7 like that. So- Yeah I’m
Dr. Ben Weitz: a big believer in the 45 milligrams of MK4.
Dr. Barrie Tan: Oh, you got it. You have to inter… and that book is about to come out in sometime in the fall. So when that come out, you give me another interview, and you know-I’m not telling something, like, very strange and- you know, you
Dr. Ben Weitz: need to talk to Michael Holick. He’s the world’s leading expert on vitamin D. I’ve interviewed him, and he’s not up on vitamin K. He doesn’t believe in the benefits of vitamin K. You gotta talk to him. Yes, I- Do you know Michael Holick?
Dr. Barrie Tan: Y- yeah. Is he based in BU, Boston University somewhere? Yeah,
Dr. Ben Weitz: He used to be, but he’s… Yeah, he’s in
Dr. Barrie Tan: Massachusetts yes. I will look him up. I think I spoke to him one time 30, 40 years ago, but he wouldn’t know me. That was long time ago. I would do that. So, when that book come out, I talk about GG, I talk about CoQ10 making, MK-4 making, and vitamin D and calcium, and all the thing having to do with calcium transport, the good side to the bone, the bad side to the artery, and all this wonderful thing.
When that book come out, you must get your biohacker to get a copy of that. So it took me th- long time. I’m just pushing it to the end. It’s probably another 5, 10% I’m done, so in the fall we’ll publish and then maybe that will be a good time to talk about that. That would be great. GG like that, yeah.
All right then. Well, [00:58:00] thank you so much. I hope that this will be- Thank you so much, Dr. Ben … a real thing. Yeah. Thank you so much. I love this conversation. Yeah. All right then. Thank you.
Dr. Ben Weitz: Thank you for making it all the way through this episode of the Rational Wellness Podcast. For those of you who enjoy listening to the Rational Wellness Podcast, I would very much appreciate it if you could go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and give us a five-star ratings and review. As you may know, I continue to accept a limited number of new patients per month for functional medicine. If you would like help overcoming a gut or other chronic health condition, and wanna prevent chronic problems, and wanna promote longevity, please call my Santa Monica Weitz Sports Chiropractic and Nutrition office at 310-395-3111, and we can set you up for a consultation for functional medicine. And I will talk to everybody next week.
And get a free ebook: "How to Reduce Digestive Distress"
