Lycopene

What is lycopene?

When it comes to how beneficial tomatoes may be for your health, lycopene is definitely the first to mention. Lycopene is a carotenoid and the most potent naturally occurring antioxidant. Nowadays tomatoes are more than just a vegetable, its nutritional benefits all originate from lycopene. Lycopene has significant medicinal value as an antioxidant, as well as reducing the risk of nucleic acid deficiency. This aids in slowing (cellular) mutations, as well as preventing cardiac diseases and certain types of cancer.

Lycopene is only naturally occurring in flora, thus making vegetation the only possible source. Furthermore, the bio-availability of lycopene is increased by food processing.

Lycopene is mainly distributed in the liver, lungs, skin and colon.

The results of the research on lycopene.

More and more studies of the medicinal properties of lycopene have been increasingly researched by scientists worldwide. The researchers in the USA, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and Japan have made every effort to investigate the medicinal properties of lycopene.

The following timeline demonstrates this:

1959: American scientists first reported lycopene to have certain cancer-fighting properties.

1985-1991: Researchers in Italy used a high dosage of lycopene in their experiments for preventing cancer. The study revealed that lycopene might reduce the risk of cancer in various organs, specially the esophagus, stomach, colon, prostate gland, etc. Scientists from a research institute in Japan explore four inland regions in order to determine of the incidence ofstomach cancer in these areas. Monitoring the blood level of vitamins A, C, E, P-carotene and lycopene in the population showed that the lowest occurrence of stomach cancer were among the people with the highest lycopene blood level.

1989: Animal testing demonstrates that lycopene might prevent the cancer caused by diethylnitrosoamine that is absorbed by the lungs.

1992: Scientists from the Harvard Clinical Research Institute examine 12-year old frozen blood serum from patients in the early stages of pancreatic cancer and found that the lycopene blood level was inversely proportional to the stage of cancer.

1994: Research conducted by Harvard University demonstrates that eating dishes containing tomato twice a day reduced a risk of prostate cancer by 34%.

2002: “Time Magazine” published a list of top-ten health beneficial foodstuffs among which lycopene-containing tomatoes were among the first.

The market prospects for supplements containing lycopene manufacturing.

Nowadays lycopene-containing food supplements are becoming popular throughout the United States and Europe and spurring growth in the manufacturing of these supplements. In fact, lycopene is becoming a leading food supplement. Recent research has come up with evidence that lycopene may prevent ageing, malignant tumors, improve immunity and may be able to prevent heart disease and cancer.

Health-improving value of Lycopene

Firstly, it improves immunity and may prevent tumors.

Over the last few years tumor incidence rates in populations of various parts of the world have been steadily increasing. Apart from hereditary factors, this ailment is associated with unhealthy living and an unbalanced diet, which statistics reports cause approximately 80% of tumors. Furthermore, diets high in fat and calories and low on vitamins combined with lack of exercise mainly results in a higher risk of bowel cancer. Smoking and eating contaminated foodstuffs is much more common today and is inducing the increased incidence of lung cancer, stomach cancer and liver cancer. Moreover, diseases of all kinds may occur due to the growing stresses of urban living, as well as various psychological factors.

It was as early as in the 1950s when scientists in the U.S. first suggested lycopene to be an anti-cancer agent. In 2001, a complicated pharmaceutical preparation had been obtained by a small group of researchers affiliated with Richlife Labs, USA, and the Cancer Reasearch Centre, Canada. They were approved by the POA, thus triggering the “red storm” in the USA and Europe.

Whereas tumors are caused by a weakened immune system, lycopene may protect phagocyte cells against oxidation-induced damage. It stimulates proliferation of the lymphatic T and B-cells as well as their proper function. It may also improve the effectiveness of macro phagocytes, cytoxic T-cells and killer cells that destroy cancer cells; thus reducing the oxidation-induced damage for DNA of lymphatic cells.

A general physiological tumorogenesis mechanism may be described in the following manner: a foreign mutational agent penetrate into tissues and cells inducing gene mutations that lead to the production of cancer cells. Lycopene may significantly reduce the activity of many cancer-inducing agents, nitrosoamines and heterocyclic amines, especially; it has certain mutation-slowing and cancer-fighting properties, as well as notable cancer permeation fighting ability.

Moreover, lycopene is efficient in protecting the organism against being impaired by nicotine and alcohol. Fried food, which contains a lot of tumor and mutation inducing substances, is highly common in the Mediterranean coast. However, monitoring of the population has shown the liver cancer, prostate cancer and cervix of uterus cancer rates to be surprisingly low. The local traditional diet was found to include a lot of tomatoes, in the south of Italy and in Greece especially, where dishes are mostly served with tomato sauce.

Lycopene prevents cardiac diseases. Higher living standards are associated with certain changes in the lifestyles and diets of people today. Use of carbohydrates and fats is increasing, whereas exercise is decreasing. Besides, the lipoid metabolism tends to weaken after a number of years which results in fat accumulated on vascular walls of the heart and brain causing a variety of life threatening diseases, such as hypertension, hyperlipemia, coronary heart disease, cerebral hemorrhage, etc. Statistics report that blood vessel ailments in the heart and brain are the number one killer in modern-day cities.

Being an anti-oxidant, lycopene may protect lipoprotein against oxidation-induced damage. Moreover, lycopene aids in reducing blood viscosity, as well as in blood scavenging; and it helps prevent atherosclerosis. Lycopene is efficient in relieving atherosclerosis and hypertension; it is also related to a reduced risk of atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease. Lycopene deficiency is associated with higher risk of cardiovascular disease. Long-term statistical research from Holland revealed that infarct-patients had lycopene levels much lower than healthy people.

Lycopene has also exhibited important antioxidant properties; it may slow ageing and protect skin. Since ageing is a natural process for humans, there is no way to prevent it, but there are certain ways to slow it. Ageing, is a process of metabolic disturbances. The intimate knowledge of various factors that affect metabolism, as well as the reasons for their persistence, is of primary importance.

Free radicals are the main oxidizing compounds in the human organism which causes ageing and related diseases. A lot of studies have shown lycopene to be the most potent antioxidant among individuals over thirty. The lycopene antioxidant is two to three times more efficient than carotene and it leaves the efficiency of vitamin E far behind. A lycopene antioxidant may prevent cellular and subcellular membrane destruction; it may also reduce the damage for the organs and tissues caused by free radicals. Furthermore, lycopene is effective in inhibiting the activity of monoamine oxidase—an important precursor to ageing—resulting in the significant slowing of ageing and other various functional disorders. Due to its specific antioxidant abilities, lycopene aids in maintaining the natural structure of the skin, protecting it against damage-causing ultraviolet rays.

Finally, lycopene to a certain, extent can prevent osteoporosis, prostate diseases and various liver functional disorders.

Lycopene has no observable side effects.