Lycopene is a bright red carotenoid pigment that is part of what makes tomatoes and other pigmented fruits so healthy for you. Lycopene, as it turns out, is a potent antioxidant, scavenging for oxygen free radical species that can do a great deal of cellular damage to the body. In fact, it’s a hundred times more powerful than the antioxidant power of vitamin E. Besides tomatoes, the fruit that is the highest in lycopene, this is the pigment that gives color to guava, rosehips, watermelon and pink grapefruit.
Interestingly, some studies have shown that processed tomato products actually provide more nutrient power than fresh tomatoes. Lycopene seems to absorb better when it is in processed tomatoes when compared to fresh tomatoes.
In the body, lycopene is deposited in the liver, lungs, prostate gland, colon and skin. Studies have shown that lycopene can reduce the risk of digestive tract cancers and prostate cancer. Italians, who eat more tomatoes on average than other populations, have a much reduced risk of digestive tract adverse health conditions. It is believed that lycopene acts against adverse health conditions by reducing oxidative stress, a feature of potent antioxidants.
Lycopene also interacts with and prevents lipid peroxidation, meaning that it blocks the dangerous effects of LDL-cholesterol on the body and blocks abnormal plaque formation that causes adverse heart related conditions. This also explains why those who consume many tomatoes have a lesser degree of adverse heart conditions and related disorders. In one study in which 19 healthy subjects consumed a variety of tomato products for three weeks, there was no reported no change in serum cholesterol levels but subjects showed a significant decrease in lipid peroxidation and LDL-cholesterol oxidation.
In foods, lycopene exists as part of a matrix (in chloroplasts or chromoplasts) within the vegetables or fruit. Lycopene in nutritional supplements is available in the form of an oleoresin, in phospholipid complexes and in oils. Lycopene is extremely fat soluble so when it is caught up in the matrices of fresh tomatoes, we don’t absorb it as much as we do when the matrices are broken down in processing.
Lycopene supplements are available in capsules or tablets as oleoresin preparations, phospholipid preparations and in oils, such as medium chain triglycerides.
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Kawashima A, et al. “Four week supplementation with mixed fruit and vegetable juice concentrates increased protective serum antioxidants and folate and decreased plasma homocysteine in Japanese subjects.” Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2007;16(3):411-21.
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Bowen P, Chen L, Stacewicz-Sapuntzakis M, Duncan C, Sharifi R, Ghosh L, Kim HS, Christov-Tzelkov K, van Breemen R (2002). "Tomato sauce supplementation and prostate cancer: lycopene accumulation and modulation of biomarkers of carcinogenesis". Experimental Biology and Medicine 227 (10): 886–893.
