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Not only tomatoes, but also carrots protect against prostate cancer
Men who consume tomato products, like sauce or juice, several times a week reduce their risk of prostate cancer. That's old news, and no reason to read the research that the Vietnamese epidemiologist Dong Van Hoang published in Nutrients recently. More interesting is Van Hoang's discovery that also carrots may protect men against prostate cancer.
Study
The researchers used questionnaires to measure the dietary pattern of 244 men aged 64-75 years, who were diagnosed with prostate cancer. They did the same with 408 similar men without prostate cancer. All men lived in Ho Chi Minh City.
Results
As the men ate more carrots or tomatoes, their prostate cancer risk was smaller. Striking was the relatively small amount of mainly root that was necessary for a protective effect.
When they looked at the different carotenoids separately, the researchers only discovered a protective effect of lycopene. They also found no statistically significant association between prostate cancer and the intake of carotenoid food sources such as citrus fruits, pumpkin, watermelon and sweet potatoes.
Conclusion
"This case-control study showed an inverse, dose-response association of dietary lycopene, tomato, and carrot with prostate cancer risk among Vietnamese men, despite the lack of association for other dietary carotenoids (beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, beta-cryptoxanthin, as well as lutein and zeaxanthin) and their food sources", writes Van Hoang.
"However, the replication of the present study in other locations and a large prospective study in this population would assist in confirming the findings."
Source:
Nutrients. 2018 Jan 11;10(1). pii: E70.
More:
Enhanced with lycopene, Natural Killer Cells are better cancer fighters 01.01.2018
Every 10 g carrot reduces chance of prostate cancer by 5 percent 08.11.2014
Alpha-carotene: the life elixir in carrots 30.10.2012
Archives:
Cancer Prevention
Prostate Cancer
Tomato
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