Abstract: With the continuous improvement of living standards, increasing intake of high fat and the breakage of lipid metabolic balance in the body have become one of the reasons that lead to the rapid increase of hyperlipidemia. Thus, hypolipidemic functional foods have become of increasing concern. A wide variety of such foods have been developed, which can be classified by main functional ingredients as polysaccharides, dietary fiber, vitamins, saponins, steroids, alkaloids, proteins and peptides, amino acids, flavonoids, phenols, un-saturated fatty acids, and so on. This paper is intended to review the current progress in the research and development of functional foods with blood lipid lowering, triglyceride reducing or antioxidant properties, with the purpose to provide reference for future study of hypolipidemic nutraceuticals and foods.

Key words: hyperlipemia, hypolipidemic, hypocholesterol, hypotriglyceride, antioxidant