If your vitamin E supplement contains only tocopherol forms, you may not be getting all of the benefits this nutrient has to offer. While tocopherols are very important, they lack many of the synergistic benefits offered by their cousins, the tocotrienols. Few people realize that vitamin E is composed of eight different compounds. Half of these are called tocopherols, which is the most common form of vitamin E. The other half are known as tocotrienols.