Consuming Lycopene is good for the skin

Lycopene is a carotenoid found in red fruits and vegetables. It is a pigment that makes tomatoes red. Recently British researchers have found that consuming hearty servings of Lycopene rich foods reduce the amount of skin burning and damage caused by solar radiation comparable to a weak sunscreen. The subjects consumed 5 tablespoons full of tomato paste a day for 12 weeks and this improved the skins protection from the sun by a third. The study also found that skin samples taken from the subjects had a higher level of procollagen; a molecule which gives the skin its structure and loss of which leads to aging and wrinkling of the skin with a loss of elasticity. The study was performed at the Universities of Newcastle and Manchester and the results were presented at the British Society for Investigative Dermatology’s recent meeting.  

Choose cocoa or dark chocolate this Valentine’s Day

The cocoa bean is one of the most concentrated natural sources of antioxidants that exist. The naturally occurring cocoa antioxidants known as flavan-3-ols help combat the cell damage that can lead to tumor growth helping to reduce cancer risk. According to researchers at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center’s Cancer Prevention Center “moderate amounts of dark chocolate may play a role in cancer prevention”.