Medicine for Africa - Medical Information Service

UTRITION - TOMATOES

Definition:
 
It has always been known that nutrition is an important ingredient for growth and maintenance of health. However, the kinds of food products considered healthy today are quite different from the ones just a few decades ago.

While meat and high fat and cholesterol products were considered important then, today the value of vegetables and fruit, once regarded with suspicion, has become the mainstay of a balanced and healthy diet.
 
Here, we will discuss - the Tomato - a vegetable of the nightshade plant native to Mexico and Central and South America. The tomato has become a major part of everyday meals, be it as tomato sauce, tomato ketchup, tomato paste, tomato soup or served fresh in salads. The important health aspect of the tomato has, however, only recently been discovered.
 
Carotenoids and antioxidative vitamins have long been considered important nutritional factors that are responsible for protection against a large variety of health problems. Lycopene is the carotenoid in tomatoes that makes them red, and it has recently been recognized as having an important protective effect against the development of certain cancers.
 
Studies showed that lycopene does lower the risk of developing cancer of the prostate, the lung and the stomach. In addition, there is a lower but still somewhat protective influence against the development of cancer of the pancreas, colon, breast and uterus as well as cancer of the mouth and esophagus associated with the consumption of a sufficient amount of tomatoes or rather its ingredient, the antioxidant lycopene.
 
It is not quite clear yet, how many tomatoes have to be consumed to achieve sufficient protection - one study suggests that just one tomato a day could decrease the risk of certain cancers by up to 50%. Whether you eat the tomato fresh, processed in tomato sauce or as ketchup does not seem to destroy the lycopene, even cooking has only a small influence on its presence. However, there are differences between the availability of lycopene depending on how the tomato is being consumed, suggesting that a nutritional adjunct in the form of concentrated lycopene might deliver the largest possible amount, relative to consumption.

The protective effect of tomatoes and its antioxidant compound lycopene are now recommended as an important nutritional factor not only for adults but even for growing children in order to provide the organism with this protective product at the earliest possible time.


If you do not want to eat tomatoes regularly or if you are allergic to tomatoes, there is now the possibility of including your recommended daily dosage of lycopene in the form of a tablet which contains lycopene in a concentrated state and provides you with the same protective effect as tomatoes would do.

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