Vitamin E is one of the great fat-soluble antioxidants; it is able to go where ordinary water-soluble antioxidants cannot. Vitamin E helps stop oxygen in red blood cells from turning into harmful peroxides. As well, it protects other vitamins from oxidation in the digestive tract. Most vitamin E supplements contain only ᴅ‑alpha‑tocopherol, and often the synthetic form; at New Roots Herbal, there is much more to vitamin E than ᴅ‑alpha‑tocopherol—there are eight compounds that make up the vitamin E family; four tocopherols and four tocotrienols, extracted from vegetable oils that are present in their natural, fully active, unesterified form. Our food contains all eight compounds, and this is the form our bodies have been processing since the beginning of our time.