Sources of Tocotrienol

Edible oil originating from plants are rich source for tocotrienols. Crude palm oil extracted from the fruits of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) particularly contains a high amount of tocotrienols (up to 800 mg/kg), mainly consisting of gamma-tocotrienol and alpha-tocotrienol. It also contain the most potent form of all commercially available tocotrienols - delta-tocotrienol.

Tocotrienols are also found in oil derived from rice bran, barley, wheat germ and rye.

Common sources of tocotrienols are:


Palm	Rice	Wheat


Barley	Rye	Oat

	Tocopherols (T1) *milligrams per 1000 grams / ppm**				Tocotrienols (T3) *milligrams per 1000 grams / ppm**				T3	T1 & T3
Sources	alpha	beta	gamma	delta	alpha	beta	gamma	delta	Total	Total
Palm Oil¹	256	-	316	70	143	32	286	69	530	1172
Palm Oil²	279	-	61	-	274	-	398	69	741	1081
Palm Oil	152	-	-	-	205	-	439	94	738	890
Rice bran	324	18	53	-	236	-	349	-	585	980
Wheat Germ	1179	398	493	118	24	165	-	-	189	2377
Barley	350	50	50	-	670	120	120	-	910	1360
Oat	180	20	50	50	180	-	30	-	210	510
Coconut Oil	5	-	-	6	5	1	19	-	25	36
Palm kernel Oil	13	-	-	-	21	-	-	-	21	34
Soya bean Oil	101	-	593	264	-	-	-	-	-	958
Safflower Oil	387	-	387	-	-	-	-	-	-	774
Peanut Oil	130	-	216	21	-	-	-	-	-	367
Cocoa Butter	11	-	170	17	2	-	-	-	2	200
Olive Oil	51	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	51
¹ HT Slover, Lipid 6;291 (1971) ² KJ Whitte, et al. Analyst 92;423 (1967)

Tocotrienols From Normal Diet Alone

Since tocotrienols only occur at very low levels in nature, with the highest concentration found in palm oil, so it is virtually impossible to attain the amount of tocotrienols that show beneficial effects from the normal diet alone. For example, one would need to consume a cup of palm olein (cooking oil) a day to get the level required for effectiveness as described in most studies.

Sources	Amount Taken To Achieve the Required Levels of Tocotrienols
RBD Palm Olein (Cooking Oil)	1 tea cup (~ 80 g)
Rice Bran Oil	2 tea cup (~ 160 g)
Barley	3.0 kg
Wheatgerm	1.5 kg
Oats	4.0 kg

Comparison between Palm & Rice Tocotrienols