The natural antioxidant vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) is of interest to use in packaging applications to decrease the amount of toxic products migrating into food and drugs. We have earlier shown that the long-term efficiency of alpha-tocopherol in polyethylene (PE) films is poor. alpha-Tocopherol is located in the lipid phase of the cell in vivo and it has been revealed that it is more efficient in a polar substrate. PE is more hydrophobic and homogenous than the heterogeneous and hydrophilic lipid phase. Three different additive systems were investigated to model alpha-tocopherols heterogeneous natural environment in PE. Two of these had carboxylic acid groups, EAA and polyTRIM/PAA core-shell particles (core), and the third, oat starch, had no carboxylic acid groups. The materials were thermally aged and characterized by chemiluminescence (CL), FTIR, chromatography, and thermal analysis. The EAA system as well as the Core system improved the antioxidant properties of alpha-tocopherol in PE, and the Core system had the best performance. We know that starch has stabilizing properties in PE, but it had no effect on the efficiency of alpha-tocopherol. (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.