Vitamin E

Vitamin E was recognized more than 60 years ago as a factor required for normal gestation in rats fed diets containing rancid fat. This factor, named tocopherol from the Greek tokos (childbirth) and pherein (to bring forth), was also found to be required for prevention of encephalomalacia in chicks and nutritional myopathies in several species. After vitamin E was recognized as an essential nutrient, numerous interrelationships were identified between it and other dietary factors, such as selenium and synthetic antioxidants, in preventing many varied animal diseases.
These diseases include those prevented by vitamin E or certain synthetic antioxidants (e.g., encephalomalacia in chicks, fetal death and resorption in rats, depigmentation of incisor enamel in rats, and muscular dystrophy in rabbits); those prevented by vitamin E or selenium (e.g., dietary liver degeneration in rats, exudative diathesis in chicks, and nutritional muscular dystrophies in lambs, calves, ducks, and turkeys); and those prevented only by vitamin E (e.g., testicular degeneration in rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, dogs, monkeys, and chickens, and nutritional muscular dystrophies in rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, and dogs).