AbstractHuman serum paraoxonase 1 (PON1) appears to play an important role in the development of a large variety of diseases with an inflammatory component including heart disease, diabetes, rheumatic diseases, neurological diseases and cancer. As such PON1 research is rapidly expanding into new biomedical fields. Unfortunately, this rapid expansion has resulted in a number of problems due to poor experimental design and the spreading of misconceptions in the literature. This review seeks to describe the basic properties of PON1 and the problems and misconceptions that have arisen.