Hyperlipidemia can lead to disorders that result in the onset of various diseases, including cardiovascular diseases which are the leading cause of death in many industrialized countries. Antioxidants are recommended in the treatment of various diseases, particularly atherosclerosis. However, the results of the studies are inconclusive and do not provide strong evidence that antioxidants have a substantial effect on disease. From the results of the studies presented in this paper it might be concluded that although antioxidants might be beneficial in patients with atherosclerosis or other cardiovascular diseases, however, single or even combination of a few antioxidants are not reliable agents for this purpose. This might be due to the complexity of free radicals which are produced and work as a continuous chain. It is known that after scavenging electron, if an antioxidant is not restored by the following antioxidant in the chain, it usually changes to a pro-oxidant. In this situation, the final effect of such supplementation would be no or a damaging effect. In this review study, other than presenting and discussing the studied antioxidants on hyperlipidemia and cardiovascular diseases, the possible reasons for the opposing actions of different antioxidants are discussed in detail.
