In this video, we're going to talk about our 3rd type of lipid vitamin, which is vitamin E. Now it's important to note that vitamin E is also commonly referred to as alpha-tocopherol. And so vitamin E is another isoprenoid lipid vitamin. But this time, it's going to serve as an antioxidant. And you might recall that antioxidants remove highly reactive and dangerous free radicals. And so what helps me remember that vitamin E serves as an antioxidant is that antioxidant literally says the letter E in it when you say it, antioxidant. And so as an antioxidant, vitamin E is going to protect other compounds from these highly reactive, dangerous free radicals. And because these free radicals can cause cancer to develop, vitamin E is also important for helping to prevent cancer. So vitamin E has a very important protective function.
So if we take a look at our image down below right here, notice that we're showing you the chemical structure of vitamin E, and so we can put in E here for vitamin E. And we know that vitamin E is also commonly referred to as alpha-tocopherol. And so notice that we're associating this shield right here with the chemical structure of vitamin E. And that's because vitamin E serves as a protective antioxidant that removes highly reactive and dangerous free radicals. And so notice down below in our image, we're showing the free radicals here as this angry They are highly reactive and dangerous. And They are highly reactive and dangerous, and free radicals can actually cause cancer in cells. And so notice down below in our image that we're actually showing you some free radicals here with, the unpaired electron, the lone pair of electron here, on these, structures that you see here.
And so hopefully, this angry mob of free radicals will remind you of the free radicals that are highly reactive and dangerous. And we really need protection from these free radicals, and that is exactly what vitamin E serves to do, with, this shield here, protecting from these free radicals as an antioxidant. And so really this here concludes our lesson on vitamin E or alpha-tocopherol. And in our next lesson video, we'll be able to introduce our last lipid vitamin, which is vitamin K. So I'll see you guys there.