Vitamin E and muscle diseases.

Studies of the basic biochemical mechanisms underlying muscle damage aimed at finding agents which might reduce the amount of damage occurring in muscular dystrophy and other severe myopathies have been performed. These have suggested three types of agent which might be useful for this purpose, namely calcium antagonists, phospholipase inhibitors, and antioxidants or scavengers of reactive-free radicals. Vitamin E falls into the latter of these three categories and has been shown to reduce the amount of damage which occurs in isolated skeletal muscles following a given stress. It is suggested that, in the absence of calcium antagonists having relatively specific and effective actions on skeletal muscle or suitable inhibitors of muscle phospholipases in man, therapy with vitamin E or other antioxidants may reduce the amount of muscle damage occurring in patients with severe myopathies.