Antioxidants : Lycopene up your heart

We all have heard and read a lot about antioxidants and their wonder effects on our body and stress. Medical researches over recent years have been talking a lot about one such antioxidant called Lycopene. What do we know about this stress buster other than its origin lies in tomatoes?

Lycopene like many antioxidants is a pigment present in the skin of fruits and vegetables rendering them their red color. Being a plant pigment it is not produced by the human body and needs to be consumed by eating the fruits and vegetable source of Lycopene.
Tomato, watermelon, red grape fruit are a few common sources of the antioxidant.

Research has time and again shown us that consuming Lycopene has taken to protecting from cardiac disease and prostate cancer. So exactly how does it help? Well the exact physiology of the wonder pigment remains to be understood however research has demonstrated that men who suffered from cardiac diseases or prostate cancer showed low amounts of Lycopene in their body fat whereas those who didn’t had more Lycopene in their body fat.

I know what your thinking if this antioxidant is suppose to protect us from heart disease and cancer how has it been seen in body fat ? Well the answer to that is simple Lycopene like many fat soluble pigments such as Vitamin A and D are absorbed in our intestinal tract with the help of fat. But this does not imply that excess of fat is needed for absorption of Lycopene. Lycopene helps in reducing the stress stimulating free radicals which breakdown fatty acids incompletely leaving them to form plaques on the arterial walls, causing artherosclerosis. Artherosclerosis is the deposition of LDL and other molecules in the blood on the plaques formed on the walls of the arteries leading to a block as we commonly know called cholesterol blockage.

Now the real fundamental information is how do you make sure you get your heart and organs Lycopene packed and plaque proofed? Well it is seen that fresh tomatoes and fruits possessing Lycopene aren’t best absorbed as compared to their cooked versions.
Tomato sauce, soup, ketchup, puree are enriched sources of Lycopene as the pigment is easily available from the crushed and cooked skin of the fruit. A red grape sauce has better chances of absorbing Lycopene in our body than just the mere fresh fruit. A tea spoon or half of olive oil or any vegetable oil helps enhancing the absorption in the body.
To help you understand better below are enlisted Lycopene amounts in fruits and tomatoes.

FOOD SOURCES OF LYCOPENE
Food Item - Lycopene in milligrams
Tomato Soup, 1 cup - 24.8 mg
Tomato or Spaghetti Sauce, ½ cup - 19.4 mg
Canned Tomatoes, ½ cup - 11.8 mg
Watermelon, 1 cup - 7.8 mg
Ketchup, 2 tablespoons - 5.1 mg
Fresh Tomato, 1 medium - 3.7 mg
Pink or Red Grapefruit, ½ cup - 1.8 mg
Source: USDA/NCC Carotenoid Database for U.S. Foods -- 1998 & Tomato Research Council
Wish you wellness,
Neha
R.D
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