Do Tomatoes and Lycopene Supplements Prevent Cancer?
You may have heard that tomatoes and processed tomato products, like tomato sauce and canned tomatoes, protect against prostate and other types of cancer. The cancer-preventing properties of tomato products have been attributed to lycopene. Lycopene, which belongs to the same chemical family as beta-carotene, is an antioxidant that gives the deep red color to tomatoes and several fruits. As a result, Internet Web sites have proliferated to advertise lycopene supplements for the prevention of prostate cancer. And lycopene is added to some multivitamin pills as an inducement to choose them rather than a competitor’s brand of vitamin pills that do not contain lycopene. Indeed, several studies have reported that the intake of tomato products or lycopene lowers the risk of some types of cancer. An article in the July issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute covers a thorough review by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the evidence for the cancer-protective effect of tom
