Relation of Bile to Absorption of Vitamin E in the Rat

Abstract

The present study is an extension of the previous work reported from this laboratory on the relation of bile to the absorption of the fat soluble vitamins. 1

In order to determine whether or not vitamin E is absorbed by the bile fistula rat, female rats cannot be employed since female rats with bile fistulas fail to breed, and the usual criterion, viz., the prevention of resorption of the fetuses by administration of vitamin E to the mother before the fifth day of pregnancy, cannot be used. Furthermore, if the bile fistula is established after breeding and before the eleventh day of pregnancy, resorption of the litter takes place. Therefore the male rat was used in these experiments. In vitamin E deficiency, characteristic changes in the testes take place. The condition is irreversible. For this reason curative tests could not be used in the present study. The method of preventing the characteristic changes in the testes was used as the criterion for the absorption of vitamin E in bile fistula rats.

Three hundred fifty male rats, after weaning, were reared on a diet which was deficient in vitamin E and high in its content of fat. 3 At various intervals of time most of the animals were unilaterally castrated. The testis of each animal was weighed, sectioned, and studied histologically. Breeding tests were also carried out on these rats. Female rats of known fertility were employed in the breeding tests. In this manner the physiological state of the testis was correlated with the histological picture. The testis which was removed first served as a control. At the end of the experiment the second testis was removed and the histological pictures of the 2 were compared.