With weakened antioxidant defenses, body cells and tissues become prone to develop dysfunction and/or disease. Then, the maintainance of adequate antioxidant levels, but not overdosage, is essential to prevent or even manage a great number of disease conditions. Total antioxidant activity (TAA) could be a reliable biomarker of diagnosis and prognosis of oral precancerous lesions like oral leukoplakia (OL) and oral submucous fibrosis (OSMF), although several cautions for its use should be carefully done ( choice of appropriate method, use of other antioxidant biomarkers such as cell antioxidants, genetic antioxidant __ampersandsignndash; response elements or antioxidant vitamins and use of valuable oxidative biomarkers ). TAA could be useful to evaluate nutritional interventions with antioxidant __ampersandsignndash; rich foods on disease risk and prevention. The present study was thus undertaken and an attempt was made to correlate the serum levels of lipid peroxidation, assessed by thio barbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and total antioxidant activity (TAA) in relation to oral precancer lesions. The results of this study indicate that imbalance in the redox status of oral precancer patients may be due to enhanced lipid peroxidation and compromised antioxidant defenses.