Influence of Vitamin E on the Development of Morphological Changes in Rabbits’ Organs in Experimental Hypercholesterolaemia

The experiment was conducted on male rabbits of the New Zealand breed divided into three groups: a control group and two experimental groups. The experimental groups were on a cholesterol diet consisting of 0.5 g of cholesterol/100 g of fodder/rabbit/24 h. In addition, rabbits from the 2 experimental group were receiving vitamin E in the amount of 10 mg/kg of body mass/24 h. After three months, blood was collected for biochemical analysis, and the heart, kidneys, liver and aorta were collected during postmortem examination for histopathological tests. The pathomorphological changes were assessed in paraffin sections, stained with haematoxylin and eosin, as well as in frozen sections, stained with Sudan III for neutral fats. The experiments showed that the addition of vitamin E to the cholesterol diet inhibits the development of atheromatosis in artery walls and regressive changes in the examined organs.