Pharmaceutical manufacturers have singled out the most useful and most stable forms of each vitamin over the last 100 years. Sometimes these forms are nature-identical, and sometimes not. Usually, with only a few exceptions, the vitamins in pills are utilized and handled by the body just as efficiently, or more so, than the vitamin forms found in foods. One exception is vitamin E. The natural forms, called d-alpha-tocopherols, are absorbed and utilized twice as well as the synthetic forms, denoted by dl-alpha tocopherol. There might also be some differences in utilization between synthetic and natural beta carotene (vitamin A precursor), vitamin Ds and vitamin Ks. It makes no differences to our cells if the vitamin forms (called vitamers) were synthesized or came from a pill or an apple, as long as the vitamer is nature-identical. Vitamin E is the only vitamin where the natural vs. synthetic source makes a difference, and our bodies favor the natural form.