Eating a diet rich in tomatoes reduced skin cancer development by 50 percent in mice, according to a new study by The Ohio State University. The research highlights how nutritional interventions may modify the risk for skin cancers.
The research was conducted by Tatiana Oberyszyn, a professor of pathology at The Ohio State University in Columbus, co-author Jessica Cooperstone, a research scientist in the Department of Food Science and Technology in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at the university, and their colleagues. Their findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Unprotected sun exposure is a major risk factor for skin cancer. Keratinocyte carcinoma (KC) skin cancer is the most common cancer, with 5.4 million new cases diagnosed in 2012. Basal cell carcinomas account for around 80 percent of KC cases, and around 20 percent of cases are squamous cell carcinomas.
While KCs are associated with a low mortality rate, the financial impact of treating skin cancers in the United States is around $8.1 billion and rising. In a bid to reduce skin cancer cases and their treatment costs, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent Skin Cancer in 2014.
As a result of the Call to Action report, alternative methods of protection against skin cancer have been investigated, with protection using nutritional interventions being a potential candidate for modulating skin cancer risk.
Previous evidence has shown that consuming tomato paste may reduce sunburn, and that dietary carotenoids – which are “pigmenting compounts that give tomatoes their color” – left behind in human skin after eating the paste may be responsible for its protective effect against ultraviolet (UV) light damage.
“Lycopene, the primary carotenoid in tomatoes, has been shown to be the most effective antioxidant of these pigments,” says Cooperstone.
Other research indicates that lycopene intake from eating a tomato in its whole food form is more effective at preventing sunburn than lycopene administered from a synthesized supplement. This suggests that other compounds in tomatoes may contribute to the overall effect.
SOURCE:https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318452.php
