Vitamin E requirement of rats fed on a diet containing grains from the endemic region of Keshan disease.

Keshan disease (KD) is an endemic cardiomyopathy occurring in China. Combined selenium and vitamin E (VE) deficiency might be involved in the development of KD. It was shown in this paper that addition of 20 and 100 mg/kg DL-alpha-tocopherol tended to decrease malondialdehyde (MDA) content of myocardium in the rats receiving the low selenium (0.013 ppm) grains from the endemic region of KD, but not to a statistically significant extent. And addition of 200 mg/kg DL-alpha-tocopherol significantly decreased the myocardial MDA content, which suggested that VE requirement of the rats receiving KD endemic grains was 200 mg/kg DL-alpha-tocopherol. However, the MDA content in the myocardium of rats receiving KD grains added with 100 mg/kg DL-alpha-tocopherol was significantly decreased when selenium (0.1 ppm) was supplemented, which suggested that VE requirement of these rats was decreased to 100 mg/kg DL-alpha-tocopherol in the presence of selenium. The ability of VE in counteracting free radicals in myocardium of rats appeared greater than that of selenium.