ISMNT News #30 is in line with previous News focusing on molecular mechanisms of disease prevention by nutraceuticals. We all are aware of the benefits of a high vegetable consumption but could not provide a straightforward explanation. The EURAMIC Study shows that lycopene has a protective effect on myocardial infarction. Tomatoes are the primary dietary source of lycopene which represents a non-provitamin A carotenoid with potent antioxidant activity. It might also not be surprising in this respect that an evaluation of the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study has detected a lower prostate cancer risk associated with the greater consumption of tomatoes and related food products (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 1996 Oct;5(10):823-833). It was concluded in this study that "The presence of lycopene in the prostate at concentrations that are biologically active in laboratory studies supports the hypothesis that lycopene may have direct effects within the prostate and contribute to the reduced prostate cancer risk associated with with the consumption of tomato-based foods. The future identification and characterization of geometric lycopene isomers may lead to the development of novel agents for chemoprevention studies."

The key reference is by:

Kohlmeier L, Kark JD, Gomez-Gracia E, Martin BC, Steck SE, Kardinaal AF, Ringstad J, Thamm M, Masaev V, Riemersma R, Martin-Moreno JM, Huttunen JK, Kok FJ

LYCOPENE AND MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION RISK IN THE EURAMIC STUDY

Am J Epidemiol 1997 Oct 15;146(8):618-626

A multicenter case-control study was conducted to evaluate the relations between antioxidant status assessed by biomarkers and acute myocardial infarction. Incidence cases and frequency matched controls were recruited from 10 European countries to maximize the variance in exposure within the study.

Adipose tissue needle aspiration biopsies were taken shortly after the infarction and analyzed for levels of carotenoids and tocopherols. An examination of colinearity including all covariates and the three carotenoids, alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, and lycopene, showed that the variables were sufficiently independent to model simultaneously. When examined singularly, each of the carotenoids appeared to be protective. Upon simultaneous analyses of the carotenoids, however, using conditional logistic regression models that controlled for age, body mass index, socioeconomic status, smoking, hypertension, and maternal and paternal history of disease, lycopene remained independently protective, with an odds ratio of 0.52 for the contrast of the 10th and 90th percentiles (95% confidence interval 0.33-0.82, p = 0.005). The associations for alpha- and beta-carotene were largely eliminated.

We conclude that lycopene, or some substance highly correlated which is in a common food source, may contribute to the protective effect of vegetable consumption on myocardial infarction risk.