Want to Lower Your All-Cause Mortality? It May Help to Include Tomatoes in Your Diet
- • by Nils Osmar. August 12, 2024
- This post is not intended as, and should not be taken as, medical advice.
- See full Medical Disclaimer
- Image by Mabel Amber – courtesy of Pixabay
Several recent studies have found an association between the consumpton of tomatoes and both cause-specific and all-cause mortality.
Study 1: Consumption of tomatoes is inversely related to all-cause mortality.
From the study:
We investigated the associations of raw tomato, tomato catsup or lycopene intake with all-cause and cause-specific mortality using data from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) screening trial. A multivariate Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).
During a total of 1,672,715 follow-up years, 24,141 all-cause deaths, 7,534 cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths and 7,161 cancer deaths occurred.
Total mortality was statistically significantly inversely associated with intake of raw tomato (Q5 vs. Q1; HR, 0.95 [95% CI, 0.91–0.99]), tomato catsup (Q5 vs. Q1; HR, 0.93 [95% CI, 0.89–0.97]), and moderate lycopene (Q4 vs. Q1; HR, 0.88 [95% CI, 0.85–0.93]).
CVD mortality was significantly inversely related with intake of moderate raw tomato (Q4 vs. Q1; HR, 0.90 [95% CI, 0.83–0.97]), tomato catsup (Q5 vs. Q1; HR, 0.92 [95% CI, 0.85–0.99]), and moderate lycopene (Q4 vs. Q1; HR, 0.90 [95% CI, 0.83–0.98])…
Moderate dietary intake of lycopene was significantly associated with a lower cancer mortality (Q4 vs. Q1; HR, 0.89 [95% CI, 0.82–0.96]). There was a non-linear J-shaped association between consumption of raw tomato, tomato catsup or lycopene and total mortality (P for non-linearity <0.001).
In conclusion, in this large nationally representative sample of US adult population, tomato products, and lycopene intake were associated with lower risks of total and CVD mortality. Moderate consumption of lycopene was also related with a reduced cancer mortality.
A different study found an inverse relationship between the consumption of tomatoes and cancer mortality.
Adjusted Cox models showed that tomato and lycopene intake were inversely related (hazard ratio (95 % CI)) to cancer mortality: 0·86 (0·81, 0·92) and 0·79 (0·74, 0·82), respectively.
In the adjusted competing-risk models, the sub-hazard ratios (95 % CI) were 0·89 (0·83, 0·94) and 0·82 (0·78, 0·86) for cancer mortality for tomato and lycopene intake, respectively…
Our results demonstrate the potential beneficial effects of a high dietary intake of tomato and lycopene on cancer death. Further prospective studies are needed to explore the association.
My thoughts:
- For a number of reasons, tomatoes are one of my dietary staples.
- Green tomatoes contain toxins, but ripe tomatoes are high in many beneficial nutrients. They are also low in oxalates.
Not medical advice
This article is not intended as, and should not be taken as, medical advice. I’m not advising that people eat any particular diet or take any particular supplement(s), just reporting on what I’m doing. Supplements, like medications and other interventions, can have side effects; I would encourage people to research both possible benefits and side effects before starting on any supplementation regimen, and consult with a medical professional about any issues which might have a medical component. See full Medical Disclaimer\
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