Vitamin E-supplemented diets reduce lipid peroxidation but do not alter either pituitary-adrenal, glucose, and lactate responses to immobilization stress or gastric ulceration.

It has been suggested that antioxidant administration to rats would reduce the physiological response to stress. In the present experiment adult male rats were given diets supplemented with vitamin E for one or seven days before they were subjected to immobilization stress. Vitamin E administration reduced hepatic and gastric lipid peroxidation in unstressed rats but did not modify the pituitary-adrenal, glucose and lactose responses to 1 or 18 h immobilization. Similarly, gastric ulceration caused by 18 h immobilization was unaffected by the diets. These results indicate that the inhibition of lipid peroxidation does not modify the response of several, well-known, stress-markers in the rat.