Exercise-induced muscle damage in the rat: the effect of vitamin E deficiency

Rats, fed a vitamin-E-deficient diet for 6 weeks, performed treadmill exercise for 2 h. Muscle damage was assessed by measuring the creatine kinase (CK) activity in plasma before and after exercise, and by studying semithin longitudinal sections of the soleus muscle 48 h after running. Vitamin-E-deficient male and female rats showed an increased post-exercise CK activity when compared to matched controls, but male rats showed a larger CK response than females. This rise in plasma CK activity was caused mainly by an increased activity of the muscle-specific CK-isoenzyme, CK-MM (males + 1238%; females + 540%, P<0.05). In a parallel histological study we observed in vitamin-E-deficient male rats a dramatic and significant disturbance of the normal cyto-architecture of the muscle fibres after exercise (focal necrosis, phagocytosis and cellular infiltrates), whereas in females only minor, non-significant, changes were seen. We conclude that vitamin E deficiency enhances the susceptibility to exercise-induced muscle damage in male rats more than in female rats. This difference between the sexes is attributed to the protective effect of oestradiol that remains operative in female rats when the vitamin E status is disturbed: male rats lack such hormonal protection.