Lycopene in tomato for reduction in prostate cancer risk.

Lycopene - How Foods Fight Cancer

Men who had ten or more servings of tomato
products each week had a 35 percent reduction
in prostate cancer risk.

You may not have heard much about lycopene, but you have certainly seen
plenty of it. Just as beta-carotene is nature’s yellow-orange pigment,
lycopene is a bright red pigment, providing the color for tomatoes, watermelon,
and pink grapefruit.

Lycopene is in the carotenoid family, meaning that it is beta-carotene’s
chemical cousin, and it is actually a much more powerful antioxidant. A
study at Harvard University showed that men
who had just two servings of tomato sauce per
week had 23 percent less prostate cancer risk
compared to those who rarely had tomato products.
6 Men consuming ten or more servings of
tomato products each week had a 35 percent
reduction in risk, and that was true even if their tomatoes came in the form
of pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, or ketchup. In fact, the cooking process
releases lycopene from the plant’s cells, increasing our ability to absorb it.

Not all red foods contain lycopene, however, as nature has a couple of
other similar pigments in its paint box. The red color in strawberries, for
example, does not come from lycopene, but from a group of pigments
called anthocyanins, which are powerful antioxidants in their own right.
(Other anthocyanins provide the color for blueberries, cherries, plums, and
red cabbage.)