Lycopene from tomatoes may be your prostate glands best friend

Lycopene from tomatoes may be your prostate glands best friend

     A new very large, case control study shows that tomatoes, the best source of Lycopene, and the minerals calcium and selenium ward off prostate cancer. British researchers at Oxford, at Cambridge and at the University of Bristol compared dietary and the lifestyle habits of 1,806 men aged 50 to 69 with prostate cancer to those of 12,005 men without cancer.

The researchers developed a dietary index showing which foods and components may influence prostate cancer occurrence. Men who had optimal intakes of these three dietary components had a lower rate of prostate cancer. Tomatoes and it’s products offered the most protection out of the three giving an 18% reduction when consumed 10 times a week.

The research is the first study of its kind to show that men who eat a lot of such dietary components as the cancer-fighting element Lycopene, abundant in tomatoes — as well as selenium and calcium are less likely to be diagnosed with cancer. The study is published in the medical journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.