Two experiments were conducted to study the effect of emulsifiers on the incorporation of tocopherols to the rat tissues. As Experiment I, two groups of vitamin E deficient rats were forcedly administered roughly equal mixture of α-, β-, γ- and δ-tocopherol with or without monoglyceride (MG) p. o., and after the treatment, tocopherols in small intestine and liver of these rats were temporally analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography. Experiment II was made by analyzing tocopherols in small intestine at 7 hours and in liver at 10 hours after the same treatment, except using soya lecithin (LE), sorbitan tristearate (SO) or a lipophilic sucrose fatty acid ester (SU) instead of MG.
1) Results of Experimeent I suggested that the addition of MG increased the uptake of each tocopherol to liver, but did not show increase of it in small intestine. The peak level of each tocopherol was generally attained at 7 hours for small intestine and at 10 hours for liver after the treatment.
2) In Experiment II, the uptake of each tocopherol to small intestine was significantly decreased by the addition of LE, but its decrease was not observed by addition of SO or SU. The addition of those emulsifiers seemed to increase the uptake of tocopherols to liver.
3) Examined distribution of each tocopherol in the liver at 10 hours after the treatment showed that the above effect of each emulsifier seemed to be higher by the order of MG>SU>SO≅ LE.
