The FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, says there is no credible evidence that intake of lycopene, the pigment that gives tomatoes their bright red color, cuts the risk of any type of cancer.
Dr. Claudine Kavanaugh and colleagues have published a report which states quite categorically that "no credible evidence" exists that tomatoes prevent lung, colorectal, breast, cervical or uterine cancers and only "very limited evidence" that tomatoes can reduce the risk of prostate, ovarian, gastric and pancreatic cancer.
The FDA was prompted to review the data on tomatoes and lycopene after a coalition of tomato product and supplement makers requested permission to make qualified claims that their products prevented cancer.
This involved the federal agency in an evaluation of 145 studies of lycopene, tomato, or tomato product intake and cancer risk in order to arrive at a valid conclusion.
Lycopene, is an anti-oxidant that gives tomatoes their red colour and anti-oxidants are an important part of the diet which are thought to work against cells that could become cancerous.
Other experts beg to differ and say that tomatoes and lycopene could be helpful in preventing more advanced-stage cancer, but may have no effect on the earlier-stage, and more possibly benign, disease identified by PSA tests.
The essential message however remains that fruit and vegetables are healthy foods to eat with many health giving benefits.
The study is published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Professor Lammert “ working together with his colleagues Dr. Frank Gr nhage, Maja Walier and Professor Dr. Thomas Wienker as well as scientists at the University Clinic of Cluj-Napoca in Romania “ has been searching for the specific genes involved. And he has succeeded, thanks to a study covering 178 women and men from 84 families. They all suffer from gallstones. In 21.4 per cent of cases the subjects were found to be carrying a particular gene variant. In healthy individuals studied as a control group, this variant also occurred, but only at a frequency of 8.6 per cent.
Cholesterol pump at full speed
"The mutation concerns what is known as the ABCG8-gene," Dr. Gr nhage explains. "It contains the instructions for building a pump responsible for transporting the blood lipid cholesterol from the liver into the bile ducts." Most of the gallstones consist to a high degree of crystallised cholesterol. The medical researcher concludes that, "The genetic alteration probably makes the pump run permanently at high speed."
The researchers now hope that their finding will have positive consequences for prevention and therapy. Professor Lammert thinks that, "It may be possible for certain patients to be helped with drug treatments in future, thus avoiding the need for an operation." However, the genetic contribution to the common problem of gallstones has not been fully explained by this study: "We believe there are at least three or four other gene variants that increase gallstone risk," says the medical scientist.
uni-bonn.de