From May 1976 until June 1982 a longitudinal study in 54 apparently healthy Austrian schoolchildren with a mean age of 11.2 years at their first visit was performed. The aim of this study was to determine if there are any age-related changes in serum lipids, lipoproteins and α-tocopherol concentrations during adolescence and whether a permanent relationship between lipoproteins and α-tocopherol can be observed. Total cholesterol showed a significant decrease from age 11 to 14 years in boys (from 195.5 ± 42.2 to 147.9 ± 40.3 mg/dl) as well as in girls (from 181.9 ± 29.7 to 144.1 ± 23.4 mg/dl); thereafter, a slight increase could be shown. Similar changes could be observed for LDL cholesterol. No significant sex differences were found either in total or in LDL cholesterol, whereas in HDL cholesterol concentrations, a decrease in boys between 12 and 14 years (from 58.4 ± 18.3 to 41.7 ± 10.8 mg/dl) and an increase in girls from 13 years onwards led to significantly lower values in boys than in girls from the age of 16 years onwards. No consistent changes could be shown for α-tocopherol blood levels. Nevertheless, a close relationship between total cholesterol and α-tocopherol could be observed during all our investigations (0.4695 ≤ r ≤ 0.7300, p < 0.05) and, to a lesser degree, between LDL cholesterol and α-tocopherol. Significant correlations between α-tocopherol and HDL cholesterol and between α-tocopherol and triglycerides occurred o