Tocotrienols in Sea Buckthorn: The Rarer Half of Vitamin E

By Dr. Raj Dhadwal

If you searched tocotrienols and sea buckthorn together, you probably already know that vitamin E is not one molecule, and you want to know which half of it this berry actually carries. Most labels and most articles say "vitamin E" and stop there. That single phrase hides eight different compounds, and the four called tocotrienols are the rarer, less understood half. Here is what the published composition data says about which forms sea buckthorn, also spelled seabuckthorn, carries, in what amounts, and how that compares with the oils people think of as vitamin E sources.

Vitamin E is eight molecules, four tocopherols and four tocotrienols, and the published data shows sea buckthorn is a tocopherol berry: its measured vitamin E is reported almost entirely as tocopherols, with tocotrienols not consistently reported at all.

What is vitamin E actually made of?

Vitamin E is a family, not a compound. It has eight members, and they split into two groups of four.

The first group is the tocopherols: alpha, beta, gamma and delta. The second group is the tocotrienols: alpha, beta, gamma and delta again. Every one of the eight shares the same head, a chromanol ring, which is the part that does the chemistry. The difference between the two groups is the tail. A tocopherol has a saturated tail, a straight and fully hydrogenated chain. A tocotrienol has the same length of tail with three double bonds in it, which is where the name comes from, "trienol" meaning three unsaturations.

That small structural difference is the whole story. It changes how the molecule sits in a membrane, how it moves, and how a plant makes it. Tocopherols are the common form across most seeds and leaves. Tocotrienols are much less widespread, concentrated in a short list of plants, and that scarcity is exactly why a searcher goes looking for them by name.

Both groups are counted as vitamin E, but they are not interchangeable in the lab or on a chromatogram. A composition study that reports "vitamin E" without naming the isoforms has told you a total and hidden the split. The interesting question for any plant is always which of the eight it carries.

Which vitamin E forms does sea buckthorn carry?

Sea buckthorn is unusual among fruits for carrying two separate oils, a pulp oil in the soft orange flesh and a seed oil in the small seed, and its vitamin E is reported in those oil fractions rather than in the watery juice. We cover the two oils in detail in pulp oil versus seed oil.

A published review of sea buckthorn oil composition reports the seed oil at 100 to 300 mg of tocopherols per kg, with gamma-tocopherol accounting for 60 to 80 percent of the mixture, followed by the alpha and delta forms. The same review puts the pulp oil lower, at 50 to 150 mg per kg, with a more balanced alpha to gamma ratio. In both fractions the numbers reported are tocopherols.

What that review does not report is tocotrienols. They are not listed as a measured component of either the seed oil or the pulp oil. That absence is the honest headline of this whole piece. The vitamin E that has been carefully measured in sea buckthorn is tocopherol, dominated by the gamma form in the seed, and the tocotrienol side of the family does not show up as a quantified, consistently reported fraction the way it does in a palm or an annatto. For the fuller picture of the fat-soluble compounds the berry does carry, including its carotenoids, see carotenoids and tocopherols in sea buckthorn.

So the direct answer to the search is a correction. The vitamin E measured in sea buckthorn oil is tocopherol. If tocotrienols are specifically what you are after, the published evidence points you to a different set of plants, and it is worth knowing which and why.

How does that compare with the vitamin E sources people know?

Vitamin E content is reported per unit of oil, so the comparison here is oil against oil, and the useful axis is not the total but the split: which of the eight forms dominates, and whether tocotrienols are present at all. The table states the dominant form and the tocotrienol status for each source rather than flattening very different bases into one number.

Source	Dominant vitamin E form	Tocotrienols present?	Basis	Source
Sea buckthorn seed oil	Gamma-tocopherol, 60 to 80 percent of tocopherols	Not reported as a measured fraction	Per kg oil	sea buckthorn oil review
Sea buckthorn pulp oil	Balanced alpha and gamma tocopherol	Not reported as a measured fraction	Per kg oil	sea buckthorn oil review
Wheat germ oil	Alpha-tocopherol	Tocopherol-dominant	Oil	tocol dietary sources review
Sunflower oil	Alpha-tocopherol	Essentially tocopherol only	Oil	tocol dietary sources review
Palm oil	Gamma-tocotrienol	Yes; about 940 mg total tocotrienols per kg	Oil	tocotrienol review
Rice bran oil	Mixed tocopherol and tocotrienol	Yes; about 465 mg total tocotrienols per kg	Oil	tocotrienol review
Annatto	Delta-tocotrienol	Yes; almost entirely tocotrienol	Dry seed	tocol dietary sources review

Two things are clear from that column of tocotrienol status. Palm oil is described in the review literature as the only common edible oil with gamma-tocotrienol as its major form, and annatto is unusual for carrying almost pure tocotrienol, predominantly the delta form, with very little tocopherol at all. Rice bran sits in between, carrying both groups. Wheat germ and sunflower, the oils most people name when they think of vitamin E, are tocopherol-dominant oils, which is the same category sea buckthorn falls into. One caution on reading the table: the annatto row is a dry seed rather than an extracted oil, so it is not directly comparable oil-to-oil with the other rows and is included only to show where almost-pure tocotrienol is found.

Read the sea buckthorn rows against the palm and annatto rows and the point of the search resolves. Sea buckthorn belongs with wheat germ and sunflower as a tocopherol source, not with palm and annatto as a tocotrienol source. Its distinction within that group is that its dominant tocopherol is the gamma form rather than the alpha form, which is less common among fruits and seeds.

What does processing do to the tocotrienol and tocopherol content?

Because vitamin E lives in the oil, any process that removes oil removes it, in whichever direction. Pressing for clear juice discards the pulp and the seed, and with them the oil fractions that carry the tocopherols. A filtered juice or concentrate is low in vitamin E of any form compared with whole puree or the oil, regardless of how good the fruit was. It is worth reading puree versus juice alongside this if you buy either.

Refining is the other large variable, and it is well documented for commodity oils. Considerable amounts of tocols are removed during industrial refining, and deodorisation in particular strips them from a finished oil. This is a general finding across edible oils in the lipid literature rather than a measured figure for sea buckthorn, but the mechanism applies to any oil that is refined. Cold-pressed and unrefined products retain more of the oil fraction in which tocopherols are measured. The processing question for this berry is covered further in cold-pressed versus freeze-dried.

Within the tocopherol group, the alpha form is the most sensitive to heat and oxidation and the delta form the least, again a general result from studies on other oils. What that means in practice is that the exact vitamin E number on any finished product depends as much on how it was pressed, refined and stored as on the fruit it started from.

What is not published?

A tocotrienol figure for sea buckthorn is the clearest gap. The careful oil composition work reports tocopherols and does not quantify tocotrienols in either the seed oil or the pulp oil, so any specific tocotrienol number attached to this berry is not coming from that literature.

There is also no published vitamin E figure of any form for a commercial sea buckthorn puree, including ours. What can be said is structural: a whole pressed puree keeps the oil fractions that carry the tocopherols, while a juice discards them. That is a statement about processing, not a measured value. And the seed oil and pulp oil figures themselves vary widely with cultivar, ripeness and extraction method, which is why published ranges for the same berry differ by a factor of two or more.

Where this sits in a whole berry

Human Renaissance is the only sea buckthorn puree in the world sold in a single-serve pouch. 190+ naturally occurring compounds, omega 3, 6, 7 and 9, 201 mg of vitamin C per pouch, 0 g sugar, 5,640 hand-picked berries per box.

In published sea buckthorn oil work, the vitamin E forms measured are tocopherols, carried in the oil fraction rather than the filtered juice. For the wider composition see sea buckthorn nutrition facts.

Frequently asked questions

Does sea buckthorn contain tocotrienols?
The careful published oil composition work reports tocopherols and does not quantify tocotrienols in sea buckthorn seed oil or pulp oil. The vitamin E measured in this berry is tocopherol.

What is the difference between a tocopherol and a tocotrienol?
The head of the molecule is identical. The tail differs: a tocopherol has a saturated tail, a tocotrienol has three double bonds in it. Both count as vitamin E.

Which vitamin E form dominates in sea buckthorn?
Gamma-tocopherol in the seed oil, at 60 to 80 percent of the tocopherols in the published review, with a more balanced alpha and gamma mix in the pulp oil.

If I want tocotrienols, what should I look at instead?
The published tocotrienol-rich sources are palm oil, annatto and rice bran oil. Sea buckthorn is a tocopherol source, not a tocotrienol source.

The short version

Vitamin E is eight molecules, four tocopherols and four tocotrienols, differing only in whether the tail is saturated or carries three double bonds. Sea buckthorn is a tocopherol berry. The published oil composition reports 100 to 300 mg of tocopherols per kg in the seed oil, with gamma-tocopherol at 60 to 80 percent, and 50 to 150 mg per kg in the pulp oil with a balanced alpha and gamma mix, and it does not quantify tocotrienols in either fraction. That places sea buckthorn alongside wheat germ and sunflower as a tocopherol source rather than with palm, annatto and rice bran, which are the plants that actually carry tocotrienols. Its own distinction is the gamma-tocopherol lead, less common than the usual alpha. Processing decides the finished number more than the fruit does: juicing and refining strip vitamin E out with the oil, while a cold-pressed whole product keeps it.