LYCOPENE IS THE MOST POTENT FREE RADICAL QUENCHER OF ALL CAROTENOIDS

Tomatoes are delicious and refreshing when fresh-picked or chopped and mixed into a salsa.  And we hear how good they are for your health.  And they are.  But sometimes we find ourselves disappointed when we buy them fresh where they seem to lack all the rich taste and nutritional value.  And that is true.  That's not just folklore or rumor.  If you can find a delicious, vine-ripened tomato, those tend to be the most flavorful.  But the truth is that the tomatoes found inside a can of tomato sauce is actually more flavorful with a higher concentration of Lycopene.   

It's the Lycopene that gives tomatoes their health benefits.  Lycopene is one of 600 or more carotenoids.  Carotenoids accumulate in the skin where their protective compounds go to work.  I use the word protective because these carotenoids protect your skin from UV rays, working in this way as an anti-wrinkle food and anti-aging food.  What's not to like?  

But the health benefits of Lycopene don't end there.  According to NCBI, Lycopene is the most potent of all carotenoid free radicals.  

Lycopene, the most potent singlet oxygen quencher of all carotenoids, is a possible treatment option for male infertility because of its antioxidant properties. 

A singlet oxygen quencher is an antioxidant that destroys single oxygen free radicals.  

Dietary carotenoids seem to participate in the prevention of photooxidative stress by accumulating as antioxidants in the skin.  

Lycopene is the most potent of all carotenoids.  In fact, carotenoids have more powerful antioxidant activity than vitamin E.  

Carotenoids are known to be powerful O₂ (¹Δ_g) quenchers,⁽⁶⁾ and their activities are much higher than that of α-tocopherol and other biological antioxidants.

When the two are combined, Lycopene with vitamin E, they are a powerful compound for reducing erythema.

Stahl, et al ⁽³⁹⁾ found that combination of a relatively low dose of total carotenoids (25 mg/day) and vitamin E (RRR-α-tocopherol; 335 mg/day) significantly diminished the erythema (redness of the skin) on dorsal skin induced by illumination with UV light after 8 weeks.  

Eat your tomatoes and your watermelon and your red apples.  Not only is Lycopene good for your skin, it has terrific affects on your overall fertility, while enhancing your immunity.  Incorporate this food in your diet. 

other beneficial effects via nonoxidative mechanisms in the testis, such as gap junction communication, modulation of gene expression, regulation of the cell cycle and immunoenhancement. 

To achieve these results, however, one must take 4-8mgs per day for 4 to 12 months.  Fine.  You want these health benefits?  Great.  Take Lycopene on a daily basis for a full year and voila!

Okay, so reports on how much lycopene one should get on a daily basis varies.  The above NCBI article cites 4-8mgs per day.  But this Telegraph article says that one needs closer to 22mgs per day.  

One serving of cooked tomatoes a day, and several servings of fresh tomatoes a week. You should ideally eat 22 mg of lycopene a day; there are 27 mgs in two tablespoons of tomato purée. On a gram-for-gram basis, cherry tomatoes contain more lycopene than large tomatoes.

So far no mention of how many milligrams are found in an average-sized tomato.  

How should I eat them?

Here, canned is better than fresh. Lycopene is better absorbed when it is consumed in processed products, such as baked beans and tinned tomatoes, rather than as whole tomatoes. Choose tomato-based pasta sauces rather than creamy ones. Organic tomato ketchup is particularly good, and tomatoes are a fine excuse for a Bloody Mary.  

That surprised me.  You get more Lycopene in processed products. 

Tomato-based foods offer the highest concentrations of lycopene, according to the Linus Pauling Institute. Because carotenoids are fat-soluble nutrients, cooking tomatoes with oil or eating cooked tomatoes with small amounts of fat increases the amount of lycopene that your body can absorb. Tomato sauces, pastes, soups and juices contain more lycopene than the fresh vegetable. One cup of canned tomato paste provides 75 mg of lycopene, compared to 5 mg[s] in one cup of raw tomatoes, the Linus Pauling Institute notes. Watermelon, pink, grapefruit, guava, apricots and papaya contain lycopene. These nutritious foods also provide vitamin C, potassium, folate and other antioxidant pigments.

That should be the final word on tomatoes and lycopene.  You get more Lycopene in processed foods. The one citation above even pointed to ketchup.  I used to think that Ronald Reagan was crazy when he and his commission cited ketchup as a vegetable, but apparently it has enough nutrients in it to have some protective effect against aging, illness, and a more youthful look.  

This was interesting.  If you consume too much carotenoids, they will deposit in your skin and turn your skin yellow, red, or orange.  I once consumed too much carrot juice one night and woke the next with orange arm pits.  Literally.  I freaked out and went to the Emergency Room the afternoon of the next day where the doctor asked if I had consumed any carrot juice.  Guilty as charged.  The best way to get the right amount is not really through supplementation but through food.  Your body will select the amount of Lycopene it needs and discard the rest.  

ANTIOXIDANT CAPSULES IMPROVE HEALTH PARAMETERS AMONG ATHLETES IN TRAINING

A review of Bill Sardi's book The New Truth About Vitamins & Minerals is in order.  It is an excellent primer for newbies and regular supplement consumers to understand the complexities of the vitamin supplements.  It's not as easy as you think.  Some vitamin pills produce a better nutrient profile in the blood and tissue than certain foods.  We like to think that foods alone, the beautiful things grown in the verdue fields of Northern California are Nature's secret to good health.  Turns out that beta carotene alone in pill form is better absorbed than that the beta carotene in carrots.   

I want to start off with a statement I found at the close of Sardi's Chapter 3, "The Recommended Daily Allowance Is Obsolete."  The statement is found in a chart that I feel all parents and adults need to see.  Here's the chart:

SPECIAL NUTRITIONAL NEEDS OF THE AMERICAN POPULATION THAT CANNOT BE MET BY THE BEST DIET OR MOST MULTIVITAMINS

Total US Population: ~280 Million

Athletes, exercisers: Untold millions. Exercise produces more oxidation within the body; countered by antioxidants.  [Cell Biochem Function 16: 269-75, 1998]  Antioxidant pills improve health parameters among athletes in training.  [Int J Sports Med 21: 146-50, 2000]

Heart Disease Patients: 50+ Million.  Vitamin E may be beneficial. [Archives Family Medicine 8: 537-42, 1999]

Hypertensive patients: 43 Million. 500 mgs Vitamin C daily reduces blood pressure similar to drugs. [The Lancet 354: Dec 1999]

Diabetics: 15.7 Million (798,000 new cases annually)  Vitamin E has protective effects.  [Am J. Clinical Nutrition 63: 753-59, 1996]

Hospitalized: 33 million annually. Hospitalized folks have increased need for antioxidant nutrients.  [Int Journal Vitamin Nutrition Research 54: 65-74, 1984]

Pregnant & Lactating Females: 4 Million US women give birth annually; offspring must obtain nutrients from mother.  Fertile women require folic acid before conception to prevent birth defects.

Tobacco Smokers: 66 Million. Smokers require 25 mgs of Vitamin C for each cigarette they smoke.  [Ann NY Academy Sciences 258: 156-67, 1975]

Elderly: 34 Million Older adults have increased nutritional needs. [Geriatric Nutrition, Raven Press 1998]

Retirees at Risk for Cataracts: 34 Million 10-year users of 250 mgs of Vitamin C have 45-83 percent reduction in risk.  [British Med J 305: 335-39, 1992]

I would have liked to have seen this chart when I was a young man playing baseball or running or basketball.  This is must-viewing for all athletes from elementary through to college level.  

The other thing about vitamins is that we're often misled from the beginning.  During the 1980s we were told that the cholesterol in eggs is bad for you.  We were told that a low-fat, high-carb diet is the healthy diet, so people were eating more pastas and more breads.  Cakes and cookies, too, by that logic must have had some benefit despite the sugars.  Then the '90s came and we got a correction.  Suddenly meat and cheese and butter, even eggs, were healthy again.  Almost overnight.  Alarms about sugar then began to surface.  And as common sense began to reclaim the dietary landscape, instances of some claims going too far emerged, like all-meat diets that produced ketones.  A ketogenic diet was touted as the key to weight loss and a top-tiered approached to curing cancer since its low-carbohydrate efforts positioned itself as the antidote to the '80's high-carbohydrate diet with its high sugar content as the previous avenue to health.  Pictures of carrots, broccoli, and eggs aside, the ketogenic diet may, in fact, help you to lose some weight.  The goal, however, in any diet regimen is health with weight management a beneficial and beautiful side effect of health.  Problem with a ketogenic diet is that people will eat more meat and fewer vegetables.  The antioxidants are in the leafy green and multi-colored vegetables, not in the tissue of the cow.  Animal protein is a superior form of protein, no doubt.  But the iron content of red meat is something to watch out for.  When we're young, iron, which is a growth mineral, is excellent for growing bodies.  At age 40 and beyond, we've accumulated enough iron and probably don't need supplementation of that mineral.  For young folks there is no better protein source than red meat.  But for us older folks, we need to manage mineral accumulation better for iron and iron accumulation is implicated in disease.  

But what about the cancer-prevention theory of ketogenic diets?  Sardi answers that question.  

Dave Bolton, age 35, diagnosed with stage 4 advanced brain cancer ditched carbohydrates and replaced them with protein and vegetables and experienced a shrinkage of his terminal brain tumor to the point where it is barely detectable.  Chemotherapy was also employed.  The scans of his brain are quite remarkable. [Daily Mail UK Aug 24, 2016]

Sadly, the ketogenic diet is often sold as a low-carbohydrate diet, which if not spelled out can be confusing and actually legitimize the consumption of some (and how much is "some"?) carbohydrates.  The carbohydrates you eat on a ketogenic diet are vegetables and some fruit.  Period.  Dot.  End of story.  That is if you want it to work.  Eating meat pinched between two slices of bread on sandwich ain't it.  That's an American diet.  But the point I wanted to make was that the absence of vegetables from your diet is what causes the production of unhealthy blood proteins called homocysteines.  And these are not good for your heart.  I like Bill Sardi's way of phrasing biological processes. 

Homocysteine is an undesirable blood protein whose levels are particularly high among individuals who do not eat fresh vegetables .  When homocysteine levels are intentionally elevated in small animals their memory is impaired whereas if the animals are pre-treated with very high doses of vitamins E and C, memory loss is prevented.  [Metab Brain Disease 17:211-17, 2002] 

And as he himself says, taking vitamins in isolation, like exclusively C without E or A or D, you won't be getting their true benefit, explaining that  

A significant percentage of adults only supplement their diet with Vitamin C or Vitamin E.  They are likely missing the many health benefits provided by a well-designed multivitamin.

So be careful with the ketogenic diet.  Eat your vegetables.  And what is of equal interest is the fact that some vitamins and antioxidants are better absorbed through pill form than through food.  This is important for anyone who believes, as this author once did, that nutrients are better absorbed through food.  

Get out of here!  

No, really.  It's true.

Sardi explains that "While Americans are frequently advised to ovtain essential nutrients from foods, a study conducted among women in an undeveloped country showed that a beta carotene pill improved Vitamin A status better than foods."  

Beta carotene pills may be superior to beta carotene in foods.  While Americans are frequently advised to obtain essential nutrients from foods, a study conducted among women in an undeveloped coutnry showed that a beta carotene pill improved Vitamin A status better than foods.  [The Lancet 346: 75, 1995]  This study reveals that beta carotene in pill form can often improve Vitamin A status better than dark-green leafy vegetables.  Furthermore, a recent report issued from the National Academies of Sciences shows it takes twice as much plant foods such as carrots, broccoli and sweet potatoes, as previously believed to produce a given amount of Vitamin A.  [Natl Acad Sci, Jan, 2001]  A carrot provides plenty of fiber which impedes beta carotene absorption whereas a beta carotene pill contains no fiber to interfere with absorption.  

 Beta carotene is not only beneficial because it produces Vitamin A.  Studies indicate beta carotene helps to keep cholesterol particles from oxidizing (hardening).  [Free Radical Biology Med 17: 537-44, 1994]  

So it's not over.  Sardi concludes his section on vitamin A by bottomlining it for us:

Multivitamins should provide vitamin A for well-nourished population solely in the beta carotene form.  Since there is no toxicity from beta carotene, no limit is suggested though there may be some competition for absorption between carotenoids (beta carotene and lutein/zeaxanthin), so balanced carotenoids are recommended.  Persons with chronic infections or other special circumstances such as night blindness should obtain vitamin A in its fatty form (retinyl acetate or palmitate). 

An important footnote is provided on the different brands that he lists.  That footnote reads like this, "Beta carotene is convereted to vitamin A in the liver and excesses are stored in the skin, which means beta carotene exhibits no liver toxicity [or] (liver buildup)."  How's that for reassurance?  Part of that same chart, he footnotes that the "Amount of vitamin A provided by the typical American diet: 5000 IU."  Which all that a healthy person needs in terms of a maintenance dosage.  He did say that only those who are sick or chronically sick should supplement with the fat soluble forms of vitamin A, "In conditions where dietary intake of the fatty form of vitamin A is insufficient and in states of chronic or prolonged infection, supplementation with less than 5000 IU is suggested."  So there.  He tells you when to supplement and how much to supplement with.  If the situation does not apply to you, then no need to supplement.  Then this, "Amount of vitamin A needed in food supplements: 0."  And finally, "Amount of vitamin A required to produce long-term side effects: 25,000 IU."  

So there you have it.  Just take heed on what he said about the other carotenoids,

Since there is no toxicity from beta carotene, no limit is suggested though there may be some competition for absorption between carotenoids (beta carotene and lutein/zeaxanthin), so balanced carotenoids are recommended.