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Instead there has been a surprise finding, which relates to a synthetic antioxidant, the drug Probucol.

"There has been a lot of hype which suggested that antioxidant supplements had a beneficial outcome for cardiovascular disease,” said UNSW Professor Roland Stocker, from the Centre for Vascular Research, who presented his research at the Diet and Optimum Health Conference in the United States recently. "This notion was based on the observation that consumption of foods rich in antioxidant vitamins is associated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease."

"But when the dietary antioxidant supplements were tested in controlled prospective studies, it was found there was essentially no effect," he said. "It is in my view, a naive idea that vitamin E supplements should work. There is very little direct and solid scientific evidence for this suggestion, yet millions of dollars have been spent on them."

Professor Stocker's research is now leading towards the development of a new drug, based on the body’s reaction to the known drug Probucol, which is a synthetic antioxidant.

"We have been looking at why the synthetic antioxidant offers protection against atherosclerosis, the principal cause of coronary heart disease, while dietary antioxidant supplements such as vitamin E do not," he said.

Probucol, which is no longer prescribed in Australia, was previously used to reduce so-called "bad" cholesterol for those with heart disease, but it also had side effects, such as reducing "good" cholesterol and possibly inducing an irregular heartbeat.

"We think we have now identified the target for Probucol," said Professor Stocker. "We also have made major advances in our understanding of which part of the Probucol molecule is active. That is important because it allows us to develop other drugs based on that activity, and these novel drugs hopefully won't have the side-effects of Probucol."