Vitamin E and periodontitis in the rat.

This investigation was designed to study the effect of vitamin E on the course of periodontitis in thirty-six adult male albino rats. The rats were divided into three groups of twelve and placed on test diets which consisted of pelleted feed that either was deficient in, or contained adequate and high amounts of, vitamin E. After the animals had been on their respective diets for 8 weeks, a local irritant in the form of a stainless steel wire was placed around the maxillary left second molar of each animal. The wire served both as a mechanical irritant and as a collector of plaque and debris. Six weeks after the wire was placed, the animals were killed and the periodontium was examined histologically. Migration of the epithelial attachment, alveolar bone level, and numbers of inflammatory round cells were then evaluated on both sides of the maxilla. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to determine significant difference in the parameters. The results of this experiment indicate that a deficiency of vitamin E does not cause increased destruction of the periodontium in the presence of periodontitis. Moreover, no beneficial effects from the therapeutic use of vitamin E to combat periodontitis were found.