Abstract

Even though vitamin E may not improve physical achievements in sports competitions, as shown in several swimming experiments, it is important for the health of skeletal muscle: in its role as the major lipid-soluble chainbreaking antioxidant in lipid cell membranes, vitamin E protects muscle tissue in aerobic exercise, in which oxygen metabolism and, consequently, free radical production are greatly accelerated. Animal studies in several laboratories have shown that endurance exercise results in the same type of oxidative muscle damage as does vitamin E deficiency: there is an increase in the peroxidation products pentane and malondialdehyde and in enzymes leaked from muscles to plasma. Oxidative tissue damage in vitamin-E deficient animals is exacerbated by endurance training and, conversely, it is reduced by high-dose vitamin E supplementation; also, preliminary studies in humans have demonstrated antioxidant protection by high-dose vitamin E supplementation. After endurance exercise leakage of enzymes into the plasma and output of pentane in the breath were significantly reduced. During a high-altitude expedition in the Himalayas, protection was shown to be significantly better in the supplemented group than in the placebo group, as determined by anaerobic threshold and pentane exhalation.