Pizza Potential

In a six-year study of 48,000 male physicians at Harvard Medical school,researchers found that men who consumed tomatoes,tomato sauce or pizza more than twice a week showed a reduced risk of prostate cancer of 21 to 34 percent as opposed to those who did not eat these foods. Interestingly,pizza was the food that seemed to offer the most protection. Researchers say lycopene may be better absorbed when cooked with fat,such as oil and cheese in pizza.

Unlike most fruits and vegetables,where nutritional content diminishes with cooking,the concentration of bio-available lycopene increases during processing of tomatoes. Lycopene in tomato paste is 2.5 to four times more bio-available than in fresh tomatoes. This is because lycopene is insoluble in water and very tightly bound to vegetable fibre. Thus,processed tomato products such as pasteurised tomato juice,soup,sauce,and ketchup contain the highest concentrations of bioavailable lycopene. Also,cooking fresh tomatoes with a little oil greatly increases lycopene absorption because lycopene is fat-soluble and the oil seems to help absorption.

There is other evidence that lycopene’s protective action may extend beyond the prostate. Researchers at Ben Gurion University and Soroka Medical Centre in Israel showed that in the test tube,lycopene inhibited the growth of cancer cells from the breast,lung,and endothelial tissue. It can also thwart the growth of cancerous tumors in animals fed with known carcinogens,which strongly suggests that it could have the same effect in humans. 

Recent studies have also shown an inverse relationship between tissue and serum levels of lycopene and mortality from vascular disease of the heart and brain and heart attacks. Although the antioxidant property of lycopene may be the principal mechanism for its cardio-protective effects,there could be other mechanisms involved,such as its anti-inflammatory effects in conjunction with beta- carotene. 

The risk of lung cancer in non-smoking men can be reduced by ingesting 12 mg of tomato products and in women,by consuming about 6.5 mg daily. According to some studies,35 mg of lycopene is recommended for deriving protective benefits which can be obtained by having two glasses of tomato juice or a combination of tomato products. If you don’t like pizzas or tomatoes,lycopene is also present in smaller amounts in apricots,pink guava,pink grapefruit and watermelon.