Vitamin E status does not affect the responses to exercise training and acute exercise in female rats

Responses of vitamin E-depleted female rats to acute exercise and chronic exercise training were tested. Rats were fed either a control diet (+E rats) or a vitamin E-depleted diet (-E rats). After 8 wk, subgroups of the +E and -E rats performed treadmill exercise for 45 min at 28 m/min, 15% grade, and were immediately killed. Vitamin E concentrations were 80-90% lower in liver, heart and muscles in -E rats as determined by HPLC. There was no difference between +E and -E rats in blood lactate concentration, creatine kinase, lipid peroxidation indices, hematocrit or hemoglobin concentration following acute exercise. Remaining rats were either trained for a further 8 wk at 40 m/min, 15% incline for up to 60 min/d or served as untrained controls. No differences in training tolerance were seen between diet groups, with 64% of +E rats and 71% of -E rats consistently completing 60 min of daily training. The training induced similar adaptive elevations in succinate dehydrogenase activity (31-107%) in various hind limb muscles of both +E and -E rats. Trained +E rats had lower vitamin E concentrations in some but not all tissues when compared with untrained +E controls. These results suggest that consumption of a vitamin E-Free diet for 8 wk did not result in differences in blood indices associated with exercise stress or in the ability to perform a submaximal acute exercise test when compared with controls. Additionally, rats fed the vitamin E-free diet for 16 wk and rats fed the control diet for 16 wk did not differ in their ability to complete and adapt to a vigorous endurance running program.