Beginning Jan 1, 2021 (VisiVite is making the change prior to the requirement), many of the daily values for ingredients listed on the Supplement Facts are changing. For Vitamin E, it's a big change, because Vitamin E will be listed in milligrams (mg) rather than International Units (IU). What's the big deal?
Previously, companies providing inferior synthetic vitamin E ("dl-alpha" version) could list their ingredient as having the same IU as natural Vitamin E ("d-alpha" version) derived from plant oils, despite the fact that synthetic vitamin E's biologic activity and benefit are nearly half that of the natural version.
Not any more.
The FDA is forcing companies to "come clean" with their Vitamin E listing. Those like VisiVite, which uses natural Vitamin E, can claim a level of 268-270 mg. But those with synthetic vitamin E can now only claim their product contains 180 mg.
The calculation can be found on this National Institutes of Health information page:
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminE-Consumer/
Some food and dietary supplement labels still list vitamin E in International Units (IU's) rather than mg. 1 IU of the natural form of vitamin E is equivalent to 0.67 mg, whereas 1 IU of the synthetic form of vitamin E is equivalent to only 0.45 mg.
