Vitamin E in human neural retina and retinal pigment epithelium: effect of age.

Vitamin E levels were measured in retina and retinal pigment epithelium from human eye bank donors of from 12-82 years of age. In comparison to an age group of 12-45 years, humans 59-82 years of age had a higher concentration of vitamin E in both retina and retinal pigment epithelium. Depending on age, the concentration of vitamin E in retinal pigment epithelium was from 4-7 times higher than in retina. Vitamin E accumulated in the human retinal pigment epithelium in an age dependent fashion, so that by 80 years it was from 3-4 times higher than in those 20 years old. The level of vitamin E in young human retinal epithelium, however, was higher than in comparable bovine tissue. The age-related increase in human tissue vitamin E levels does not appear to be affected by postmortem time.