Lycopene for health
Going bananas over tomatoes?
fnbworld bureau/ Deepika Chhabra
If you are a tomato ketchup freak, keep lickin' it up. If you like tomato juice carry on gulping. Tomatoes harbor one of the world's most powerful antioxidants called the lycopene, a substance which has the power to fight cancer and help ward off heart disease.
Since the discovery
of lycopene, a group of scientists in Israel have
used conventional cross-breeding method to develop
a strain of tomatoes that contain upto five times
the lycopene contained in regular tomatoes.
Even more amazing is the way they have
developed a way to extract the lycopene from these
tomatoes and create an all-natural supplement
called Lyc-O-Mato® marketed worldwide (in
India as LycoRed®) that enjoys US process
patent and US FDA GRAS status. That is good news,
if you are not getting an adequate amount of
lycopene from your diet. The variability of
lycopene content in tomatoes is quite high. The
level varies from species to species and there are
seasonal differences. Generally, the redder
tomatoes are higher in lycopene, a carotenoid in
the same family as beta-carotene. But lycopene is
not just a colorant.
Lycopene is a
powerful antioxidant that has shown remarkable
fighting power against degenerative diseases. An
antioxidant is a substance that quenches free
oxygen radicals generated in the body under
conditions of stress and/or disease. Vitamin E had
long been used as an antioxidant; however, the
discovery of lycopene has made it take a backseat,
as the free radical quenching capability of
lycopene was found to be 100 times more than that
of Vitamin E.
When compared to its
cousin, beta-carotene, lycopene was been found to
be 2.2 times more potent in quenching free
radicals. Several recent studies have found that a
diet rich in tomatoes and tomato products is
strongly linked to a reduced risk of cancers. In a
six-year study of 48,000 male health
professionals, Dr E Giovannucci and colleagues at
Harvard Medical School found that consuming
tomatoes and tomato products more than twice a
week was associated with 34% reduced risk of
prostate cancer.
Other
researchers, Dr Omer Kucuk and colleagues at
Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, Michigan,
evaluated the effect of encapsulated lycopene
(Lyc-O-Mato®) on patients with existing
prostate cancer. They found that lycopene not only
treats, but also regresses prostate cancer. More
recently in Sept. 2003 issue of British Journal of
Urology International, Dr NP Gupta, Urology Head,
AIIMS, New Delhi, and colleagues, reported that
adding lycopene (LycoRed®) to the treatment of
prostate cancer produced remarkable results. It
not only shrinks the primary tumors, but also
diminishes the secondary tumors, providing better
relief from bone pain and lower UTI symptoms, and
improving survival compared to cancer treatment
alone. These major studies in the area of prostate
cancer can have a major impact on the treatment of
prostate cancer.
Major textbooks of
cancer classify lycopene as a chemopreventive
micronutrient. Besides prostate cancer, lycopene
has been reported to reduce the risk of various
other cancers like oral, brain, breast, mouth,
lung, colon, skin. Lycopene (LycoRed®) has
also been established for the treatment of
idiopathic male infertility.
Studies
conducted at two of New Delhi's leading premier
medical institutes and one of Jaipur's leading
infertility centers report LycoRed®
supplementation not only leads to an increase in
sperm parameters, like sperm count and motility,
but also pregnancy rate of upto 44% in these
infertile couples. Another major LycoRed®
study, conducted at New Delhi's Maulana Azad
Medical College, has shown that lycopene
supplementation during pregnancy reduces the
chances of Pregnancy Induced Hypertension and IUGR
(low birth weight babies) by as much as 50%. The
study has received many accolades, one of these
being the Prize Paper of the Year Award by the
FIGO journal Int J Gyn Obst in 2003.
Apart from cancer, lycopene also defends the
body against other lethal diseases like
arteriosclerosis. Dr M Aviram of Rambam Medical
Centre, Israel and Dr AV Rao, University of
Toronto were the pioneers to demonstrate the
cardioprotective properties of lycopene.
Thereafter, many major studies like the EURAMIC,
Rotterdam and Kuopio have established the
mechanism of action of lycopene against
cardiovascular disease manifestation. Yet another
hallmark was the study linking the levels of
lycopene to functional capacity in the elderly. In
this study conducted at University of Kentucky,
USA, it was found that there was a strong negative
association between lycopene levels and functional
capacity of elderly (i.e. dependence in
self-care).
Based on these studies one
can conclude that lycopene could go a long way in
improving the mental as well as physical abilities
in the elderly. There is a growing evidence that
natural lycopene taken orally can help reduce
damaging effects of the sun. Skin research is
being carried out at Boston University School, at
Israel and at Dusseldorf, Germany. Lycopene is
finding its way into more and more areas for a
healthy living, with evidence of its benefit
emerging in bone health, eye disorders and lung
function.
Health benefits of lycopene,
the star molecule with immense power, were even
further established when, for the first time, an
international conference was held at Washington DC
on April 1-2, 2003, to examine the latest
scientific findings on the potential health
benefits of lycopene from tomatoes. Various
researchers from Australia, Canada, India, Italy,
Israel, Switzerland, UK and USA gathered to
discuss new studies on lycopene in relation to
male infertility, lung function, osteoporosis, eye
disease and cancers. The conference was closed by
noting that this is one of the most exciting eras
in nutrition science. At the turn of the 20th
century, scientists discovered essential vitamins
and minerals in certain foods that prevented
deficiency diseases. Now, at the turn of the 21st
century, other novel nutrients, such as lycopene
are being examined for health benefits that are
linked to chronic diseases.
Communicating the health benefits to consumers
and health professionals must be done responsibly
by everyone including the media, industry,
academia, and government. A nutraceutical is
isolated or purified from food that is generally
sold in medicinal forms not usually associated
with food. A nutraceutical is demonstrated to have
a physiological benefit or provide protection
against chronic disease. Lycopene is the
nutraceutical that is finding the fastest growing
market in the world today. Nutraceuticals are the
new mantra for good health in today's fast-paced
lifestyle; this is also being endorsed by leading
doctors and hospitals, not only in India but
globally.
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The writer is a
doctorate in
Biophysics.
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