Lycopene, an antioxidant commonly found in tomatoes and tomato-based products, is commonly perceived to reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer.
A new study at Northwestern University seeks to determine whether natural tomato oil with a high concentration of lycopene may reverse or delay progression of high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (HGPIN), a condition in which abnormal cells form within the prostate and which is the strongest risk factor yet identified for the development of prostate cancer.
The study is headed by Peter Gann, M.D., professor of preventive medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a member of the cancer epidemiology and prevention program at The Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.
Lycopene has been found to have anti-tumor activity in a number of laboratory studies. Also, it has been used in a number of cancer studies in humans (e.g., lung, stomach and prostate cancers) that demonstrated a lower cancer rate in people with a high dietary intake of lycopene.
Research has shown an over 20 percent reduced risk for developing prostate cancer in men who ate more cooked tomato products, such as tomato sauce. Additional studies showed that cooking tomatoes and eating them with oil substantially increases the bioavailability of lycopene.
The National Cancer Institute-sponsored study at Northwestern will use tomato extract (literally, tomato oil) from non-genetically modified tomatoes raised in Israel and specially grown to be high in lycopene content.