One of the current theories of cardiovascular disease is that it may begin with oxygen radical-induced damages. Extensive studies have been made in different laboratories to elucidate the mechanism of oxidative damages in the presence of added iron salts. However, those in vitro studies are unlikely to be relevant to the in vivo situation, where in the normal physiological condition most of the iron remains bound with proteins. In the present study we have demonstrated that an in vitro system containing desferrioxamine, a strong iron chelator, superoxide generated by the action of xanthine oxidase on acetaldehyde initiates lipid peroxidation and protein changes in the guinea pig cardiac microsomes. We have further demonstrated that superoxide-initiated lipid peroxidation and protein changes are completely prevented by ascorbic acid. SOD also prevents but catalase, alpha-tocopherol, glutathione, uric acid, thiourea, mannitol and histidine are without effect. When NADPH is used instead of generated superoxide, the lipid peroxidation and protein changes are exclusively inhibited by ascorbic acid. SOD, catalase and other antioxidants are ineffective. The results obtained with guinea pigs may be extrapolated to humans, because like guinea pigs humans are also incapable of synthesizing ascorbic acid.