Influence of a Single Dose of Alpha Tocopherol Administered to Vitamin E Deficient Rats on the Fifteenth Day Upon Subsequent Growth

Abstract

The body weight deficit below the curve of optimal growth was determined in albino rats kept on two different tocopherol low diets. A single dose of alpha tocopherol of 1, 5 or 27 mg administered on the fifteenth day of life to the nursing young significantly reduces the degree of body weight deficit produced by vitamin E deficiency after the seventh week. Determination of the testicular weight in relation to the body weight deficit indicated that testicular atrophy often occurs before body weight deficit is present. Weight deficit and testicular atrophy are therefore dissociated effects of vitamin E deficiency. These observations suggest that in rats there is probably a critical need for tocopherol during the third week of life, since administration of tocopherol during that period exercises a prolonged effect.