In this research we studied the effect of free radical scavengers on restraint-induced lesions in rats. Forty rats were divided into 2 equal sized groups; a control group that was given a vitamin E deficient diet and a treatment group that was given the same diet but with oral supplementation of palm-based phytonutrient complex (PPC) at 60 mg kg-1 body weight for 28 days.

At the end of the treatment period, half the numbers of rats in each group were sacrificed while the remaining half were subjected to daily restraint-stress for 2 h on 4 consecutive days. The rats were sacrificed after the fourth exposure, their stomach isolated and examined for lesions, gastric PGE2 content, gastric malondialdehyde level and the gastric reduced glutathione level were measured as an index to reflect the scavenging abilities of PPC.

Present findings showed hemorrhagic gastric lesions in rat exposed to stress. Rats that received PPC had less gastric lesions compared to the non-stressed control. The malondialdehyde level was also significantly lower in rats given PPC supplementation compared to the control while the reduced glutathione levels were preserved. We conclude that it is indeed probable that oxygen radicals are involved in the pathogenesis of restraint stress-induced lesions thus supplementation with antioxidant such as PPC may be able to reduce or inhibit the formation of these lesions.