Published Online
on March 25, 2002

A more recent version of this article appeared on April 9, 2002

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Submitted on December 17, 2001
Revised on February 7, 2002
Accepted on February 7, 2002

Cardiovascular Aging Is Associated With Vitamin E Increase

Bernd van der Loo MD, Ralf Labugger MSc, Claude P. Aebischer PhD, Jeremy N. Skepper PhD, Markus Bachschmid MSc, Volker Spitzer PhD, Juliane Kilo MD, Lukas Altwegg MD, Volker Ullrich PhD, and Thomas F. Lüscher MD, FRCP^*

From the Division of Cardiology (B.v.d.L., J.K., L.A., T.F.L.), Cardiovascular Centre, University Hospital, Zurich, and the Division of Cardiovascular Research (R.L., T.F.L.), Institute of Physiology, University Zurich-Irchel, Switzerland; the Department of Vitamin Research (C.-P.A., V.S.), F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Basel, Switzerland; the Multi-Imaging Centre (J.N.S.), University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK; and the Department of Biology (M.B., V.U.), University of Konstanz, Germany.

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: cardiotfl{at}gmx.com.

Background—Aging is an independent risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease. Therefore, therapies to delay vascular aging may have enormous medical consequences. In this context, vitamin E is of particular interest, mainly because of its antioxidative properties.

Methods and Results—In 3-year-old rats, which are not susceptible to atherosclerosis, vitamin E levels, as measured by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography, were markedly increased both in plasma and in major organs (P<0.01 to P<0.0001). The highest increase (at least 70-fold) was found in the aortic wall.

Conclusions—This unexpected accumulation of vitamin E appears to be a compensatory mechanism that attempts to counterbalance age-associated oxidative stress and that may represent a self-regulatory protective adaptation.

Key words: aging • cardiovascular diseases • vitamin E • antioxidative defense

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