Physiological antioxidants and antioxidative enzymes in vitamin E-deficient rats.

The effects of feeding vitamin E-deficient diets to rats for one year were investigated to analyse the relationship of the vitamin with other antioxidants and some antioxidative enzymes. Long-term vitamin E deficiency lowered the levels of antioxidants like vitamin E, ascorbic acid and glutathione (GSH) in all tissues analysed and thus increasing the extent of tissue peroxidisability. Vitamin E deficiency had also influenced the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase and glutathione peroxidase, the enzymes that are involved in detoxification mechanisms of products arising from free radical metabolism.